YSL is dead. Long live YSL.

Is it the summer heat, or there a lack of, that is causing some of the great creators of our decade to drop off like lethargic flies?

Yves Saint Laurent passed away tonight in Paris, aged 71, after a battle with long-term illnesses since 2002.

Mr. Saint Laurent may have been of the "live fast, die young" crowd. But if any lesson is to be learnt from his trajectory, it is this: smoking sure hates your health. A hundred-twenty a day, Mr. Saint Laurent honourably puffed away to the end. In both the literal and the chronical sense.

It will be an almighty shame if his triumphs in conquering, what were back then, new territories in design aesthetics, become shrouded by his perennial taste for the drink, drugs and smokes, when his death is publicised.

"The audience was on its feet, screaming, shouting, weeping, a deluge of hysteria... Tears at a fashion show - Perhaps this is the crux of Yves Saint Laurent's genius. He has an ability to touch people and arouse emotion through cothes. This is what makes his clothes memorable: not their newness or innovation, not their femininity or colour, but their power to stir and evoke emotion." - The beautiful fall by Alicia Drake, on his renowned "Opera" collection of 1976.

His recreational preferences should not be by which he is remember. Instead, the man who single-handedly concocted "le smoking" suit and resurrected couture in the post war 50's whilst bringing into popularity pret-a-porter truely deserves our reverence.

Mr. Saint Laurent, We adulate you!