Yves Saint Laurent referenced 1940s fashion in his controversial 1971 collection.
The spring 1971 haute couture collection drew on clothing associated with the wartime and Occupation years: short dresses, exaggerated shoulders, turbans, platform shoes, fur-trimmed coats and deliberately retro styling. Saint Laurent called the collection “Libération,” or “Quarante,” linking it directly to the decade's visual language.
The collection provoked unusually fierce criticism. Some observers thought it romanticized the German occupation of France, while others disliked its evocation of wartime austerity and utilitarian clothing. Saint Laurent himself had not lived through the Occupation as an adult, which intensified the controversy for some French commentators.
The show nevertheless became historically important. It demonstrated Saint Laurent's willingness to turn uncomfortable or unfashionable memories into high fashion, and it helped establish the 1940s revival as a recognizable direction in early-1970s style. The collection is sometimes confused with his later Russian Peasant and Broadway Suit collections, which belonged to different stylistic phases.