Yves Saint Laurent

Yves Saint Laurent

• Fashion house founded in 1961 by designer Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Bergé
• Entered fragrance in 1964 with Y, its first perfume
• Rive Gauche, launched in 1971, broke convention as the first fragrance sold in a tin can rather than a traditional bottle
• Opium, launched in 1977, is a spiced oriental that is still in production nearly 50 years later
• Black Opium, launched in 2014, introduced the house to a new generation and won Best New Fragrance at the UK's Fragrance Foundation Awards
• Fragrances are now owned by L'Oréal, which holds the license for YSL Beauty

Yves Saint Laurent built his fashion house on breaking convention, and that same instinct carried directly into fragrance starting in 1964. Rive Gauche's tin-can bottle and Opium's bold, then-controversial name were both deliberate departures from how perfume was expected to look and behave at the time.

The house is known for confident, clearly defined fragrances rather than quiet ones, from the rich amber of Opium to the modern gourmand intensity of Black Opium. It's a strong choice if you want a fragrance from a house with genuine cultural impact and a long track record of setting trends rather than following them.