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Yves Saint Laurent and sometime-muse Catherine Deneuve

Legendary fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent died at his home in Paris last night. The 71 year old designer had long suffered from poor health and succumbed to complications of brain cancer.

Yves Saint Laurent started his career in the fashion limelight when he took over Christian Dior at the age of twenty-one. He introduced the trapeze dress and put out a couple of headline-grabbing collections before he was drafted into the French army and suffered a nervous breakdown.

Saint Laurent returned to design in 1962, starting his own label financed by companion and business partner Pierre Berger.

Under his own label, Saint Laurent changed the way that women dressed, introducing le smoking tuxedo and safari suits in the 1960’s and revolutionizing ready-to-wear. He was also one of the first to use black models on the catwalk, among them, friend and muse Katoucha Niane who died earlier this year.

Au revoir Yves. You will be missed.

Proenza Schouler plus Giuseppe Zanotti? Try saying that five times fast.

You don’t have to know how to say it, but come spring 2009, you will be wearing them. WWD reports that Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez of Proenza Schouler just inked a licensing deal with Giuseppe Zanotti to produce women’s shoes.

I love a good fashion mash-up, but I’m kind of scratching my head on how Proenza’s chunky heeled aesthetic will blend with Zanotti’s bling. It could be fashion heaven or a hot tranny mess.

Hip denim masters Ksubi are hooking up with Kanye West to develop a line of fashion eyewear for his Pastelle fashion brand. Ksubi for Pastelle will launch in October with limited edition gold frames that will retail for $2,000.

The line will be designed by Ksubi co-owner George Garrow, who previously worked with West on custom eyewear for stage and videos like the blinder sunglasses that he wore in the Stronger video.

“At our first design session at Kanye’s place in LA we spent two days talking and going over shapes,” Gorrow said. “He allowed me to push the design but playing on his aesthetic. He’s not afraid to try new things, and I guess that is why he is where he is.”

Fashion street cred proper.

In Italy, his ads most certainly are. Italy’s Institute for Advertising Self-Discipline (IAP) has banned the advertisements for Tom Ford Eyewear, calling them “markedly vulgar” and claiming that one ad depicting a man’s finger in a woman’s mouth (above) “transcends the limits of simple bad taste and offends the sensibility” and that the “scene evokes an offending and abusive act against women, which degrades the dignity of the person.”

Prior to the ban, the images ran in three Italian magazines including Italian Vogue.

Tom Ford is known for his risque ads and the ads are tagged as “sexually explicit” on his website. But unlike his boob-cradled bottle of perfume ads, the current creative doesn’t even show any sexual body parts.

Let’s keep it real. We all know that this is only going to make his new line of eyewear even more popular. This is the kind of publicity designers would cut off their sewing arm for.

But what do you say: vulgar or no?

Are you the Quentin Tarantino of perfume ads? Skilled in the art of parfum porn?

Giorgio Armani is on the hunt for a talented young director to create a television advertisement for his Emporio Armani fragrance line.

The new Emporio Armani for Him and For Her fragrances have been named “Get Together” and the creative campaign should explore the messages of freedom and togetherness.

“Together but with respect for their individuality.”

Send in your entry and vote for your favorite clips at http://www.emporioarmaniparfums.com/contest.

Entries must be submitted by May 15 and voting is open until May 31.