YVES SAINT LAURENT changed the face of fashion. He put the swing into the 1960s with his revolutionary designs, and he put women into such daring, masculine things as trousers and jumpsuits.

He is probably the most famous designer to have graced the planet – whereas Kylie or Cheryl are so famous they need only their first names to remind people of their fame, YSL just needs his three entwined initials to tell people of his style – and so the first British exhibition of his work should really be in somewhere like the V&A in London.

But it’s not. It’s in the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle, which is closer to Lartington than it is to Kensington.

It’s a great coup for the Bowes, brought about by its own French connection, and the exhibition, which opens tomorrow (JUL 11) promises to be the hottest ticket of the summer – the equivalent of the Lindisfarne Gospels for fashionistas.

YSL was born in Algeria in 1936. Bullied at school, he immersed himself in his mother’s fashion magazines and designing paper dresses for dolls. Aged 18, he arrived in Paris to study design at the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture and became its star student. He was noticed by Christian Dior, of the famous fashion house, who anointed him as his successor when he was only 21.

Shockingly, just months later, Dior died suddenly aged 52 in an Italian health spa and Saint Laurent was catapulted into the spotlight. His first couple of collections received rapturous reviews, but his star quickly dimmed.

In 1960, he was conscripted into the French army to fight in his home country. He was too delicate a flower for such a masculine environment, and he lasted just 20 days before he was hospitalised with stress. There he learned that his star had dimmed so quickly that the Dior company had sacked him, sending him spiralling further downward. Army medics responded by sedating him and giving him electroshock therapy – treatment which he later blamed for leading him towards drug dependency.

However, his partner, Pierre Bergé, dragged him back to health, helped him successfully sue Dior and start his own YSL label. They became a classic partnership – the suffering artist paired with the well-rooted businessman – and their relationship provided the basis for Saint Laurent’s most productive decade.

It began with his Mondrian collection of 1965 – six simple cocktail dresses, hanging straight, with thick black lines and dense blocks of colour. Even to someone with no interest in fashion, these are as striking and as famous as a Scream or some Water Lilies.

That great decade lasted through his Le Smoking trouser suit, in which he placed women in men’s clothing, through to his Russian collection of 1976 which some critics still regard as the greatest fashion collection ever.

But his reputation is based on more than his designs. It includes the fact that he was one of the first, in a racist age, to use non-white models. It also includes that he was the first to create a prêt-à-porter range – ready-to-wear in his Rive Gauche stores, so that ordinary women could now afford a piece of catwalk glamour. It all added to the heady atmosphere of the Swinging Sixties.

They were heady times for Saint Laurent, too. Too heady. He became part of the international jet set, and as he pushed himself to turn out ever more remarkable collections, so cocaine and alcohol addiction took its toll. There were times when, at the end of the show, he could hardly make it to the end of the catwalk without being supported by his own models.

Bergé remained with him to the end – he took a back seat from the mid-1980s and died in 2008 – and now curates his memory. After opening negotiations with the V&A, it was he who decided that the love story of the founder of the Bowes Museum made Barnard Castle the perfect place for YSL’s first UK exhibition.

The museum was founded by John Bowes, the Eton-educated County Durham landowner, who broke all conventions by marrying a Parisian actress, Josephine Coffin-Chevalier, in 1852. The pair became art collectors – paintings, ceramics, furniture and textiles – and embarked upon the crazy scheme of bringing the world of art to the people of Teesdale by building a French chateau museum to house their collection. They laid the foundation stones in 1869, but neither lived to see it open in 1892.

Bergé said: “The Bowes Museum is a natural destination given its exceptional work with fashion and textiles; the museum and its location also clearly reflects Saint Laurent’s, and my own, passion for inspiring, timeless places. It is the perfect setting for us – a museum built as a French chateau, in the age of the Second Empire.”

The exhibition will include 50 of his YSL’s most groundbreaking designs, plus hundreds of accessories. It will also work hand-in-hand with the Bowes’ clothing collection, showing from where Saint Laurent drew his inspiration and how he changed the face of fashion.

Yves Saint Laurent: Style is Eternal runs from tomorrow until October 25. Admission charges from £14 for adults to £6 for students. Due to the anticipated high demand, there will be timed admission slots to the exhibition. Tickets can be bought via thebowesmuseum.co.uk or ticketmaster.co.uk or call 0844 8440444.

FIVE YSL FASHION HIGHPOINTS

Mondrian dresses: Inspired by Dutch artist Piet Mondrian, these simple cocktail dresses of 1965 show how the body can be a canvas for art

Le Smoking: The famous tuxedo trouser suit of 1966 fitted men’s tailoring for a woman’s body

Safari jacket: Designed in 1968 for the model Veruschka, it turned khaki utility wear into catwalk fashion

Jumpsuit: A style icon from 1968, putting women into a high legged version of an airman’s all-in-one flying suit

Russian collection: Inspired by early 20th Century Russian ballerinas dresses, this was hailed in 1976 as the greatest fashion collection ever