Saint Laurent on the Wrist: The Story of Vintage YSL Watches

Yves Saint Laurent never set out to be a watchmaker. He didn't need to. By the time his name first appeared on a dial in the mid 1970s, he had already redefined what women could wear, from the tuxedo jacket to the sheer blouse, and in doing so, had become the most influential designer of the twentieth century. The vintage watches that bear his name were never meant to compete with Patek Philippe or Omega. They were meant to do what Saint Laurent did best: make the ordinary feel extraordinary through sheer force of style.

The Citizen Years: YSL Watches Made in Japan

The story begins, somewhat unexpectedly, in Japan. In 1976, Citizen, one of the country's most respected watchmakers, began producing quartz watches under the Yves Saint Laurent name. It was a curious pairing. Citizen was known for precision engineering and accessible pricing, not for Parisian glamour. Yet in Japan, where both brands held significant prestige, the collaboration made a certain kind of sense. The early models were well made gold plated quartz pieces, typically in elegant square or tonneau cases that nodded to the refined codes of French dress watches.

The Heart Shaped Watch

It is during this Japanese production era that the most recognisable vintage YSL watch emerged: the heart shaped model. Produced in several variations, with its gold plated case, the YSL monogram elegantly replacing the hour markers, and a black patent or coloured leather strap, it is pure Saint Laurent. It was a watch that doubled as a piece of jewellery. The heart cases came in different configurations, some with the brand name spelled out in a Roman font across the dial, others with a cleaner face. Models bearing the Citizen case codes 04F and 05F are among the most sought after by collectors today.

The Moon Phase

Equally compelling are the YSL moon phase models from this era. Saint Laurent's take on this classical complication was characteristically elegant, featuring two tone bracelets, clean dials, and a celestial aperture that added a layer of poetry to an otherwise simple quartz dress watch. These pieces sit beautifully alongside the Gucci and Seiko moon phases of the same period, and they remain surprisingly affordable for what they offer.

The Swiss Made Era and Sculptural Designs

As the Yves Saint Laurent watch line evolved into the late 1980s and 1990s, production also expanded to include Swiss made pieces, introducing bolder designs and more expressive shapes. Some models from this transitional period bear a "Made in France" marking on the dial, powered by movements from France Ébauches — a now-rare trace of a time when YSL accessories were still produced on home soil.

Among the Swiss made designs are striking square watches framed by deep vertical ridges that evoke pleated gold fabric, often referred to descriptively by collectors as ribbon cases. Then there are the rectangular tank style watches. With leather straps, clean lines, and an obvious echo of classic watchmaking but with a lighter fashion forward touch, these represent the most wearable side of the collection.

The Reverso: YSL's Most Coveted Watch

The rarest and most extraordinary piece in the vintage YSL catalogue is the reversible watch, where the rectangular case pivots within its frame to reveal the YSL monogram on the reverse. Inspired by the famous Jaeger LeCoultre concept, Saint Laurent's interpretation is unmistakably its own. Far from being a later addition, the most important versions of this design appeared in the 1970s. The house elevated the concept dramatically with solid 18 karat yellow gold cases, hand wound mechanical movements, stepped lugs, a cabochon set crown, and a perfectly austere dial signed Paris with nothing but Arabic numerals and a chemin de fer.

Photo credit: a_time_302

For decades, this mechanical YSL reverso existed in near total obscurity, known only to a handful of specialists and Saint Laurent devotees. That changed dramatically over the past year or so. Social media rediscovery, a broader surge of interest in vintage designer watches, and the sheer rarity of surviving examples have pushed it into a different category entirely. Prices on the secondary market have reached stratospheric levels for gold examples, and finding one at all has become a serious challenge.

Why Collect Vintage YSL Watches?

What makes vintage Yves Saint Laurent watches interesting to collectors today is precisely what once made them easy to overlook. They were never positioned as serious horological instruments. They didn't pretend to be. They were fashion objects, designed to complement a wardrobe rather than anchor a watch collection. But three decades later, the design quality of the best pieces speaks for itself. These were produced at a time when fashion houses still invested properly in their licensed accessories.

A Closed Chapter

Saint Laurent sold part of the business to Gucci Group for one billion dollars in 1999 and retired from couture in 2002. The mainline watch collections did not survive the transition. Under Kering's stewardship, the house was eventually rebranded as Saint Laurent Paris by Hedi Slimane in 2012, and the focus shifted entirely to ready to wear, leather goods, and fragrance. While the Saint Laurent name has recently appeared on highly exclusive, limited edition collaborations with fine watchmakers like Girard-Perregaux, the era of accessible, YSL branded fashion watches is definitively over.

Which means that every vintage YSL watch from this period is a closed chapter. The supply is finite. The original designs will not be reissued. And the best examples are still findable at prices that seem remarkably generous for what you get: a piece of one of the most storied fashion houses in history, designed to be worn and admired, now quietly waiting for its next life on someone's wrist.