YSL lights up Paris fashion week show with return of Le Smoking suit

A model walks the runway during the Saint Laurent womenswear show that opened Paris fashion week. Photograph: Stéphane Cardinale/Corbis/Getty Images

The most famous suit in the world, Yves Saint Laurent’s Le Smoking, has returned to the Paris catwalk 60 years after its invention.

Designed by the late couturier to be worn by men in smoking rooms to protect clothing from the smell of cigars, he adapted it for women, slimming the trousers and lapels. It wasn’t a runaway success – only one sold from his 1966 collection – but it became a global symbol of power dressing and gender dismantling, and would appear in every collection until Saint Laurent retired in 2002.