'Le Smoking' Changed Fashion Forever
Before Farnsworth reinvented smoking le Cannabis, Yves Saint Laurent invented a new fashion template from an old smoking jacket.
Helmut Newton’s iconic shot of Le Smoking, 1973
“Fashions fade. Style is eternal.”
Yves Saint Laurent
The Inspiration:
Farnsworth Fine Cannabis has significant roots in the fashion world and so it seems fitting to highlight the aptly named Le Smoking.
First shown in 1966 (and was a flop, FYI) French designer Yves Saint Laurent (1936-2008) took inspiration from a 1933 photo of actor/singer Marlene Dietrich wearing a tuxedo. In ’66, women were still in the grip of miniskirts-a-go-go, but by the 1970s and then for the rest of the century, the elegant and powerful cut of this garment would become the uniform of the “liberated” woman.
The Traditional Smoking Jacket:
Historically, the smoking jacket was a casual, comfortable but sumptuously executed garment worn by upper-class men after dinner during cigars and brandy in order to protect their clothing from the smell of the smoke. (It’s not a bad idea, right?) You could say it was the sweatpants of the 19th century.
The ceremonial and aristocrat nature of the garment made it a symbol, and then a cliché of a certain kind of performed and superficial masculinity that would linger through the 20th century. (Hugh Heffner always wore a smoking jacket.)
The Legacy:
That Saint Laurent was able to take the cliché and turn it on its head, making it a powerful symbol of female sexuality is what good fashion is all about. Of course, women had worn suits before, but there was something about his particular take that turned it from borrowed suit to power suit.
Today, this whole male/female binary may feel rather, well, binary, but it’s worth noting what Saint Laurent so beautifully expressed 80 years ago still feels poignant: the mysteries, powers, sensualities and sexualities of gender expression as they find voice through clothing.
Saint Laurent showed Le Smoking in every collection until he stepped down in 2002. The suit would be become his most enduring legacy and was revived by Anthony Vaccarello in 2020 and has once again become a house staple. Here’s to Le Smoking, in le fashion and le cannabis.