When the World Cup begins in Paris on Wednesday, all the event's official staff, including referees, will be wearing clothes by Yves Saint Laurent. This year, the French designer is celebrating four decades in the fashion business marked by a series of events. The greatest of these takes place immediately before the World Cup final on Sunday, July 12th; an hour ahead of the game, some 300 models will step into Paris's Stade de France dressed in St Laurent designs from the past 40 years.
Football and fashion scarcely ever share the same arena but throughout his career, St Laurent has regularly rewritten the rules. His association with soccer, while unexpected, is just the latest in a long line of iconoclastic acts. Yves St Laurent has always appeared to be a man of contradictions. Famously shy and highly-strung, he has yet managed to attract exceptional publicity both for his work and person. Ever since he presented his first "Trapeze Line" collection for the house of Christian Dior in January 1958, the designer has been the recipient of lavish press attention, not all of it necessarily welcome.
After parting company with Dior in 1961, he began to show under his own name the following year. Among his greatest successes over the next decade were the Mondrian range of dresses shown as part of the couture collection in July 1965, the creation of le smoking the following spring, the "Safari Look" and the first sheer garments in 1968 and a couture collection inspired by the 1940s at the start of the 1970s.
In 1976 came the sensation of his Ballets Russes collection, while three years later he produced a line inspired by the theatre designs of Picasso, de Chirico and Rouault earlier in the century. Aside from the revolutionary nature of his clothes, St Laurent has received attention when he posed nude for photographer Jeanloup Sieff in 1971 to publicise the first YSL For Men fragrance and when his company was successfully sued by champagne manufacturers over the use of their trademark name for a perfume.
Often he has been ahead of his peers - in the production of safari suits and dinner jackets for women or in his creation of a unisex scent Eau Libre back in 1975.
Occasionally, he has seemed out of step with the mood of the moment, although each time this occurs he stages a glorious comeback.
Consistently, he has been worthy of attention and for one simple reason: Yves St Laurent is a remarkable fashion talent. After working in the field longer than anyone else of equal stature, he now stands as one of the great designers of the century. Enormously influential, he has been the subject of a number of exhibitions and publications, not to mention endless speculation - about his ability to continue producing fresh ideas, about his health and welfare, about his private life.
Certain features have recurred throughout St Laurent's work - a fondness for sharp tailoring and strong bright colours, an understanding of how to achieve impact by the simplest means and a powerful belief in traditional femininity, even when women are dressed in his most masculine of designs.
After four decades in fashion, his name is one of a handful which enjoys global recognition. So even if soccer fans over the next few weeks fail to appreciate the clothes worn by World Cup officials, they will certainly know of the man responsible for their design.