The most personal tribute yet to the late Yves Saint Laurent hits French newsstands Wednesday. Têtu, the gay and lesbian magazine directed by Pierre Bergé, offers an exclusive homage from Bergé, Saint Laurent's former lover and business partner. Called "Yves Saint Laurent: Une histoire d'amour," the magazine's cover shows the designer in a maillot on a beach in Greece, taken by Bergé in 1964. The 48-page spread includes other never-published photos of Saint Laurent in private and in public; sporting a cap and shades in 1967, in Marrakech in 1969, sharing a joke with Bergé and Loulou de la Falaise in 1986. There's even a photo with Karl Lagerfeld.
Bergé's one-page editorial relates their meeting and makes passing mention of difficult times due to Saint Laurent's nervous depression, alcohol and drugs. "I helped him to overcome his fears and if one day, we decided to live separately, we never separated," Bergé writes. "We shared everything, anxieties, hopes, joys but also houses, paintings, objects of art. Sometimes lovers." Bergé refers to the couple's decision to be united in France's civil union, or PACS, as a "logical progression." He also divulges that he and close friends chose not to tell Saint Laurent he was suffering from an incurable brain tumor. Recalling the designer's pride in renovating the Jardin Majorelle in Marrakech, Bergé concludes; "One must be wary of shy people, they are the most forceful."