Laurent widened the scope of what counts as haute couture, keeping the tradition alive with a careful infusion of new ideas and contemporary references. He would not let haute couture become solely the look of a dying class sequestered in its musty palaces. He gave pants and jackets to women. He incorporated the everyday look of 60s pop culture into his designs for haute couture. But in liberating haute couture he is also breaking down the divide between haute couture and regular fashion altogether.
These tensions came to a head in Laurent’s collection from the summer of 1971. After all the contemporary references and futuristic hipness of the collections in the late 60s, Laurent went backwards. He played with the look of the immediate postwar period, a 40s look. He used crazy and unusual fabrics and materials (like camouflage), playing with the idea that you can make fashion from anything when the circumstances (like the shortages created by war) demand it. His bright green fox fur coat from that collection is something a prostitute would have worn in 1943 in order to pick up a German soldier during the Occupation.

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