Yves Saint Laurent Ran DIOR at 21

A shy boy, bullied so badly he barely spoke, would run fashion's most famous house at twenty-one.

He grew up in French Algeria, sketching dresses to escape the boys who tormented him.

A design contest carried him to Paris, where Christian Dior hired him on sight.

When Dior died, the trembling boy was handed the house, and his first collection saved it.

Then the army drafted him into the Algerian War, and the pressure shattered his mind.

He broke down and was hospitalized. While he was gone, Dior replaced him.

So he sued the house that abandoned him, won, and started his own.

Then he put women in tuxedos and trousers, in power once reserved for men.

He brought designer fashion to ordinary women with ready-to-wear, and dressed a whole generation.

The bullied boy who could barely speak had rewritten what women were allowed to wear.

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