Bergé got Yves out of hospital and back to work, helping to set up the label whose three sensuously entwined initials would revolutionise Parisian fashion in the 60s, scandalise the world in the 70s and stamp themselves imperiously across the 80s.įrom the outset, their roles were clear.
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Shortly after his Dior début in 1958, he had met Buffet's then-boyfriend, Pierre Bergé, and embarked on a personal and professional relationship which would endure to the end of his life. Exiled from his Avenue Montaigne paradise, he fell apart and was admitted to mental hospital a bare three weeks after reporting for duty: a has-been at 24.īut Yves was not alone. The rapturous reviews were soon followed by doubting ones, and two years later the House of Dior took advantage of Saint Laurent's military call-up to have their boy wonder replaced. It was the emotional fashion binge of all time." Womens Wear Daily's correspondent was more specific, and less charitable – she saw "an ugly, ungainly, overgrown boy with thick glasses, and so horribly shy he couldn't take his eyes off the floor".Ĭharged, at 21, with safeguarding the future of the world's most successful fashion house, Saint Laurent began well: after his first, rapturously received collection, the International Herald Tribune's correspondent reported: "Everybody was crying. L'Express hailed him as France's latest enfant triste – another of the country's new wave of melancholy prodigies, like novelist Françoise Sagan and painter Bertrand Buffet. Saint Laurent became an object of immediate fascination: quiet, timid, with neatly parted schoolboy hair, anxious eyes lurking behind thick glasses and a frail body encased in a tight black suit. Into the limelight: Yves Saint Laurent with models in 1962. But that sheltered, happy existence was soon to be shattered, with Dior's premature death in 1957 pushing his seemingly reluctant successor into the spotlight. As played by Pierre Niney, he is at once violently demanding and intensely shy, pampered and secure – as he had been in Algeria – in a world of adoring women. Lespert's film begins shortly after, with Yves enthroned as Dior's crown prince. By the age of 18, he had won an international design competition (beating future rival Karl Lagerfeld) and been hired by fashion's reigning Sun King, Christian Dior. Outwardly Saint Laurent led a charmed life. It's not hard to understand the fascination with the YSL story, a saga that blends wild public success with private suffering. The move provoked an immediate storm of protest, and a surprisingly long-lived backlash: last autumn, Parisian store Colette fell out with the label over T-shirts which bore the slogan: AIN'T LAURENT WITHOUT YVES. Saint Laurent himself died of brain cancer in 2008 four years later Hedi Slimane – first hired as a menswear designer back in 1996 – returned to the house and immediately shortened the label's name to Saint Laurent. Since the late 90s some of the biggest names in fashion, from Lanvin's Alber Elbaz to Tom Ford, have spent periods at the label's helm ultimately even the all-conquering Ford was defeated – simply, it seemed, not Yves enough. It is the latest round in the battle for the designer's legacy. His biopic will focus on Yves during the years when he accomplished his definitive works (the decade ending his triumphant Ballet Russes collection in 1976) and Bonello is playing up his version as the "unauthorised" story – one which will portray Yves's truth, rather than Pierre's.
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Pierre Bergé, Saint Laurent's partner, has granted Lespert access to his extensive archives and last year tweeted his outrage at the rival project: "I hold the moral rights over YSL's work… A trial on the cards?" Still, Bonello has his own heavyweight backer in Kering – the luxury conglomerate which now owns the Yves Saint Laurent label. In October the second – directed by Bertrand Bonello, best known for the controversial L'Apollonide, or House of Tolerance – will be released. This year will see the release of two films based on his life: the first, actor/director Jalil Lespert's Yves Saint Laurent, is currently topping the French box office, charming audiences with its affectionately human portrait of the man behind the myth. Six decades on, the story of the little boy who played "grand couturier", and who grew up to become the century's most notorious fashion designer, shows no sign of losing its appeal.
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