When Citizen and Yves Saint Laurent Made Watches
A Citizen x YSL women’s quartz watch on the left and Yves Saint Laurent on the right
Fashion watches are something we absolutely do not cover…usually…however, looking back through the annals of watch history there are some collaborations between fashion houses and watch brands that are just so…well, unique. Sometimes these collaborations are disasters, sometimes they work out well. What’s most interesting though, is when they are a massive mismatch! And that’s exactly what happened in the 1970s when Citizen collaborated with French fashion house Yves Saint Laurent.
Yves Saint Laurent was founded in Paris in 1962 by the eponymous Yves Henri Donat Mathieu-Saint Laurent. He was a Frenchman born in Algeria, who traveled to Paris as a young man and was quickly made Christian Dior’s assistant after the latter was shown the 17-year-old’s sketches. After a nervous breakdown in 1960, he founded his own fashion house in 1962 in Paris, quickly rising to the top of the scene there! He was notable for introducing the idea of the haute peasant look, based on traditional Russian wear, among many others. He grew his couture business to also be involved in the fragrance, home linen, and other sectors.
Saint Laurent ultimately sold part of the business to Gucci for $1 billion in 1999 and shut down the couture side of it in 2002 after his retirement. Going back to the 1970s, however, he looked East and partnered with Citizen.
Citizen Alain Delon Paris watches from the Citizen catalogues – 1990s
Citizen, on the other hand, has collaborated with many brands in the past, but not too often a luxury fashion house. Most often it was things like Snoopy or Hello Kitty, hence the ‘mismatch’. Although they did make ‘Harvard Boston’ branded watches in the 1990s…Citizen even used the namesake of French actor Alain Delon during the 1990s! Creating a collection of quartz watches dubbed ‘Alain Delon Paris’.
Now, the 1990s is one thing, lots of weird things going on in the watch world…In the 1970s, however, is when Citizen began their collaboration with YSL, producing Yves Saint Laurent branded watches exclusively for the Japanese market, since 1976! While in the 1970s, these were fairly well-made gold-plated quartz watches, by the 1980s the quality had deteriorated noticeably – as with quartz in general. Citizen produced an extensive collection of dress watches for both men and women in Japan, with prices being high – but not Seiko Grand Quartz high; ranging from about 30,000-yen to 50,000-yen. Most watches were designed with elegant square or tonneau case shapes (at least in the late 1970s), theoretically meant to evoke the elegant nature of the watches branded by the old French fashion house, Yves Saint Laurent.
Citizen ‘Harvard University’ watches from the Citizen catalogues – 1990s
The Citizen YSL watches were positioned right under the high-end Citizen Quartz like the Cryston 4 Mega (which had models worth many millions of yen) and the Citizen Exceed line, a high-end Citizen line that lasted into the 1990s. While not outright high-end watches, they were certainly in the ‘upper-middle’ range of Citizen’s offerings at the time.
When the Citizen YSL watches reached the North American market, a man named Mitchell Berlin was put in charge, formerly of May Co. and Lord & Taylor. This was the first time the Citizen YSL watches would enter the North American market as they had been previously distributed exclusively in the Japanese one. In North America they retailed between $150 to $495!
So why call it a mismatch? Well, while Citizen may be well regarded in the Japanese market – to the extent that it even made sense for Yves Saint Laurent to partner with them from a brand perspective. But this was not at all the case in the North American market. Citizen, then and now, has generally had the same brand value associated with it on this side of the pond, although surely in the 1970s and 1980s it was perceived better than today. Nonetheless, it was certainly not on the level of YSL, and as it happens the collaboration was short-lived in North America, with the Citizen x Yves Saint Laurent watches disappearing totally from the Citizen catalogue by the 1990s.
Citizen x Yves Saint Laurent watches from the 1977 Citizen JDM catalogue
Nonetheless, an interesting and even peculiar chapter in the history of Citizen and in the watch industry! A time when the Citizens of the world could aspire to collaborate with the likes of Yves Saint Laurent. If anything, far more interesting than the (insert watch magazine) x (insert watch brand) collaboration that we’ve seen lately…
By: Andres Ibarguen
Read more:
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Yves Saint Laurent.” Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Yves-Saint-Laurent-French-designer.
Hessen, Wendy. “CITIZEN WATCH WILL LAUNCH A YSL LINE.” WWD. https://wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-features/article-1105051/.
See Citizen catalogues from the 1990s.
See Citizen catalogues from the 1970s.
A vintage Citizen Cosmotron X8 Transistorized currently for sale on TVW.