Make a Sweater Statement Like a French Fashion Icon

Make a Sweater Statement Like a French Fashion Icon

MINIMALISM IS NOT the first thing that comes to mind when I think of Loulou de la Falaise—the late, great French fashion icon and Yves Saint Laurent muse/collaborator. After all, this is a woman who was known for decking herself out in exotic head scarves and the madcap jewelry she designed for Mr. Saint Laurent.

But after delving into “Loulou de la Falaise” (Rizzoli), the recently published book on her life and style, I am most transfixed by the easy, elegant look she adopted in her later years. In this photograph, taken in 2000 when Ms. de la Falaise was 52, she wears twinned Loulou for YSL gold cuffs with a ribbed turtleneck the color of fiery autumn leaves. The sweater was her own design for Mr. Saint Laurent, whose knitwear she steered for many years—certainly one of her lesser-known talents.

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The wool turtleneck in this image—shot at the Italian castle she shared with her second husband, French writer Thadée Klossowski de Rola—is one of the most stylish staples a woman can have: thin, ribbed and ravishingly rouge. “Wearing her big jewelry with something very casual like a sweater was a look she very much advocated,” said Ariel de Ravenel, who co-wrote the book with Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni.

While the Saint Laurent brand has not offered Ms. de la Falaise’s designs for many years, this season has produced a plentiful harvest of similarly slinky knits, especially in shades of crimson. “The red turtleneck is a new must-have,” said Sasha Sarokin, buying manager for Net-a-Porter, which offers a ribbed tomato-red style from J.W. Anderson. Uniqlo stocks a perfect, paper-thin merino turtleneck in both warm and cooler shades of red, and J. Crew offers one in a perky punch hue designed in collaboration with the cult Manhattan label Apiece Apart. “A red turtleneck can be very chic once you take it out of the holiday season cliché,” said Tom Mora, J. Crew’s vice president of women’s design. “It’s like wearing an amazing red lipstick.”

“She had a sharp and exacting eye,” writes Pierre Bergé, Yves Saint Laurent’s longtime partner in life and business, in the book’s foreword. “Worn by her, clothing appeared as second skin.” And that’s just how you should think of your red-hot turtleneck this winter.

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