PARIS (AP):

Yves Saint Laurent, one of the most influential and enduring designers of the 20th century, empowered women by reinventing pants as a sleek, elegant staple of the female wardrobe.

Saint Laurent, 71, died Sunday night at his Paris home after a yearl-ong battle with brain cancer, said Pierre Berge, Saint Laurent's close friend and business partner for four decades.

"Chanel gave women freedom," and Saint Laurent "gave them power", Berge said on France-Info radio. He called Saint Laurent a "true creator" who went beyond the aesthetic to make a social statement.

"In this sense, he was a libertarian, an anarchist and he threw bombs at the legs of society," he said. "That's how he transformed society and that's how he transformed women."

Death leaves emptiness

The Gucci Group, which acquired the Yves Saint Laurent fashion house in 1999, said the designer's death "leaves a great emptiness but also a sublime inheritance."

"This genius of creation shattered the codes to create French elegance, which today makes Paris a grand capital of fashion," Gucci said.

Saint Laurent was born August 1, 1936, in Oran, Algeria, where his father worked as a shipping executive. He first emerged as a promising designer at age 17, winning first prize in a contest sponsored by the International Wool Secretariat for a cocktail dress design.

Introduced to Christian Dior

A year later, in 1954, he enrolled at the Chambre Syndicale school of haute couture, but student life lasted only three months. He was introduced to Christian Dior, then regarded as the greatest creator of his day, and Dior was so impressed with Saint Laurent's talent that he hired him on the spot.

When Dior died suddenly in 1957, Saint Laurent was named head of the House of Dior at age 21.

Ready-to-wear boutiques

He opened his own haute couture fashion house with Berge in 1962. The pair later started a chain of Rive Gauche ready-to-wear boutiques.

Saint Laurent's simple navy blue pea coat over white pants, which the designer first showed in 1962, was one of his hallmarks. His 'smoking', or tuxedo jacket, of 1966 remade the tux as a high fashion statement for both sexes. It remained the designer's trademark item and was updated yearly until he retired.

Beatnik chic

Also from the 60s came Beatnik chic, a black leather jacket and knit turtleneck with high boots and sleek pantsuits that underlined Saint Laurent's statement on equality of the sexes. He showed that women could wear 'men's clothes', which, when tailored to the female form, became an emblem of elegant femininity.

End of an era

When Saint Laurent announced his retirement in 2002 at age 65 and the closure of the Paris-based haute couture house, it was mourned in the fashion world as the end of an era. His ready-to-wear label, Rive Gauche, which was sold to Gucci in 1999 for US$70 million cash and royalties, still has boutiques around the world.

Saint Laurent had long been rumoured to be ill, and Berge said on RTL radio Monday that he had been afflicted with brain cancer for the past year.

"He no longer liked the world of today's fashion ... he said it didn't understand him," Berge said.

After retirement, Saint Laurent spoke of his battles with depression, drugs and loneliness, though he gave no indication that those problems were directly tied to his decision to stop working.