Legendary Designer Yves Saint Laurent Dies at 71

[Royal-Galliano]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=5AxMmwZFOqA

 

[softgrey]

Am actually surprise that Tom actually got invited. But then again I don't really understand why he need to start being nice just because someone is dead. Afterall Yves did snub him during his debut didn't he? This is in no way taking side but I think it is a fair point.

Can't wait to read all the coverage of the funeral.

you haven't read the thread..
tom ford was NOT invited ...that is why he was NOT there

 

[JuiceMajor]

^well that make more sense that he isn't invited.

 

[nanker_phledge]

Some iconic pictures and moving eulogies by close friends, sadly marred by the sensationalist approach of that ******** rag. Still worth getting.

Totally agree...The worst was their self congratulating comments 'And It's PARIS MATCH who financed Yves Saint Laurent his first collection...Thanks to PARIS MATCH...'.

 

[MissMagAddict]

Source | IHT | June 6th | by Suzy Menkes

France Says Farewell To A Fashion Icon

The sharp black suits, upswept chignons and click-clack of high heels could have been the opening steps of an Yves Saint Laurent fashion show. But instead of glossy red lips, there were red-rimmed eyes as the Parisian worlds of fashion, art and politics turned out to say farewell to the towering creative figure of 20th-century style.

The somber funeral Thursday in the Église Saint-Roch - a church dedicated to artists since Louis XIV laid the first stone - had splashes of red. Catherine Deneuve, fighting back tears as she arrived with a symbolic bouquet of wheat sheaves, was wearing the scarlet crystal heart that was a fetish object in every YSL collection for 40 years.

There were the red roses in the shape of a heart, labeled "Pierre" for Pierre Bergé - Saint Laurent's partner for 50 years. He gave a moving address, speaking tenderly to the coffin and recounting moments of love, anguish and pride that reduced the most sophisticated of Parisians to tears and raised an ovation from the crowds watching on a satellite screen outside.

Homage came from the mighty - President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife, Carla, a former model for YSL -and the humble: a button-sewer who clung to the barricades to catch a glimpse of the cortège.

But it was above all a reunion of a fashion family, who came together, as the actress Marisa Berenson said, recalling the 1970s, to remember "that whole period when we were young and everything was free."

"Yves was such an elegant person with such a gentle soul," Berenson said, explaining how the designer's first foray into fashion was with her grandmother, Elsa Schiaparelli.

Betty Catroux, with her slim, boyish figure the mirror image of her friend Yves, sat among the family. Saint Laurent's 95-year-old mother, Lucienne, walked stoutly down the aisle on her cane, supported by her daughters.

Loulou de la Falaise, the free Bohemian spirit who was the creative counterpoint to Catroux's masculine rigor, hid under a chic black hat, while the actress Arielle Dombasle made her entrance with a giant Jackie Kennedy-style pill box.

Designers paying homage were led by the distinguished, white-haired Hubert de Givenchy, who said tearfully: "We are all here for him." Marc Jacobs, who had flown overnight from New York, said simply: "He's the person who taught me everything I know."

Alber Elbaz, who was the first to take over YSL ready-to-wear but later moved to Lanvin, sat in a group with John Galliano, Christian Lacroix and Jean-Paul Gaultier, who said after the ceremony that Bergé's revelation that he and Saint Laurent had recently been "married" in a civil union had made the address more heart-rending.

Other designers - the present YSL designer, Stefano Pilati; Sonia Rykiel; Riccardo Tisci of Givenchy; Valentino; Vivienne Westwood - were scattered through the nave in a complex seating arrangement worthy of the court of Versailles.

François Pinault, his wife, Maryvonne, and their son, François-Henri, current owners of the YSL brand, sat in the same row as Bernard Arnault and his wife, Hélène, divided by a bitter history of conflict and the church's aisle.

Since Bergé was a founding member of the "gauche caviar," or "Champagne socialists," the Byzantine placements included Frédéric Mitterrand, a cultural polymath from the former president's dynasty, and Bernadette Chirac, from the more recent presidential regime. Then there were leftist intellectuals and artists, including François-Marie Banier, acting as unofficial photographer, and the decorator Jacques Grange, who wiped away a tear as the voice of Jacques Brel followed the soaring sound of Maria Callas and Mozart's "Requiem" to bring proceedings to a close.

Full military honors were held outside the church in recognition of Saint Laurent's position as a grand officer of the Légion d'Honneur.

That medal was placed on a table at the end of the nave, where a forest of white lilies and bushes of sweet-smelling jasmine gave a perfume of the Jardin Majorelle in Marrakesh, Morocco, restored by Saint Laurent and Bergé in the honeymoon period of their relationship, and where the couturier's ashes will be kept.

The multitude of floral tributes included offerings from the houses of Balenciaga, Chanel and Dior, as well as the Opéra de France, as a reminder of Saint Laurent's other role as a formidable costume designer.

The service opened with a recording of Saint Laurent's replies to the famous "Proust Questionnaire." In his homily, Father Roland Letteron referred to the tremulous Proustian nerves of the designer.

Everybody seemed to have private memories of a man who later became a myth.

Jacqueline de Ribes referred back 50 years to the boy wonder who took over from the late Christian Dior in 1958. "I guess I am one of the last clients who remembers his first collection at Dior - the 'Trapèze' - I was a little shocked, but then I was wearing it," she said.

The former model known as Bettina also remembered "Yves from the Dior years" - especially a blue velvet ball of a dress that she said could be worn today.

Manolo Blahnik, recalling Saint Laurent's talent as "perfection" - of taste, style and craftsmanship - remembered the green velvet platform shoes with dangling cherries made for Paloma Picasso.

But some recalled more recent moments, like Inès de la Fressange, wearing what she called "a Proustian touch": a version of the buckled, patent shoes made famous by Deneuve in the 1967 movie "Belle de Jour."

"I took my 6-year-old daughter, Violette, to see Yves last year, and she told him she wanted to be a fashion designer," de la Fressange said. "And Yves wrapped his hands, gnarled and covered in rings, round hers and said with his sweet smile: 'I know you are going to make it."'

 

[annamaria]

wwd.com Friday, June 06, 2008:

"...But it was perhaps Edmonde Charles-Roux, writer and former chief editor of French Vogue, who captured the mood of France. "We are all very, very sad, even the taxi drivers are sad," Charles-Roux said. "I took a taxi [the other day] and we passed in front of the Madeleine church and the driver exploded and I asked what's wrong. And he said, 'When you think of that beautiful church in the center of Paris, and then you think of Saint-Roch. Well, it's a scandal. We had a genius and the church is not big enough.' The people on the street are sad..."


not many could do that... Definitively Brilliant!

(thank you kimair for posting the whole art. yesterday: #457 )

 

[MissMagAddict]

Source FWD | June 5th | by Godfrey Deeny

Paris Bids Farewell to Yves Saint Laurent

They said a long goodbye to Yves Saint Laurent in Paris Thursday, with a funeral attended by France’s president, scores of designers and thousands of mourners watching outside.

Thousands of fans clapped the coffin into the church, where the designer’s life long partner Pierre Berge
spoke of the love that once dared not speak its name, in a poignant homage that had an almost gospel quality with its frequent refrain of “Je me souviens,” or I remember.

Their first meeting; being captivated together by sunsets and new art; the tears at the climax of his first solo show on rue Spontini; even the day Berge had to tell Saint Laurent in hospital Val de Grace that he had been fired by Christian Dior after suffering a nervous break down; all this was remembered.

“How could I imagine it would be a half century together,” said Berge, recalling his first dawn with the designer, who died Sunday at 71 of brain cancer.

Front right, beside Berge, sat Saint Laurent’s shattered looking mother Lucienne; front left were the presidential couple Nicolas and Carla Sarkozy, former first lady Claude Chirac, Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe, and a smattering of academicians and intellectuals.

Carla, who once modeled for Saint Laurent, and her husband decorated the oak coffin with the French flag after it had been placed before the altar.

Several score of designers came to render their respect, towered over by Hubert de Givenchy, seated near Vivienne Westwood, Marc Jacobs, Manolo Blahnik, Giambattista Valli, Stefano Pilati, Ricardo Tisci, Agnes B, on opposite sides to Jean Paul Gaultier, Alber Elbaz, John Galliano (in what looked like a cockney Pearlyman’s hat), Sonia Rykiel, Christian Lacroix, Kenzo Tadaka and Valentino, with Giancarlo Giammetti, to name just a few.

The epitomes of St Germain chic, Loulou de la Falaise and Arielle Dombasle wore black classic smoking jackets, dark glasses and hats – Arielle’s more a clasp; Loulou’s a twisted trilby. It was politically correct; France’s two rival luxury billionaires – Francois Pinault and Bernard Arnault, who once had scraped for control of YSL - were also separated.

Catherine Deneuve read from Walt Whitman, in French, following some superb music: an emotive interpretation of Vivaldi’s Stabbat Mater by counter tenor Rodrigo Ferreira; Maria Callas totally filling the soaring church with Bellini’s Casta Diva; a throaty Jacques Brel. They felt like soundtracks to Saint Laurent’s own shows, a black and white finale shot of one of which made up the mass card.

The sense of loss was striking. Few people chatted in their seats, each bearing a nametag, at the invitation only funeral. This was not one of those chatty memorials; few eyes were dry.

The setting, the Eglise St Roch, is the church where Napoleon, then a young colonel rising to power, in 1795 mowed down a column of royalists massed on the steps. Bullet holes are still visible.

Napoleon’s stature came to mind when the equally diminutive and hyper energetic Berge and Sarkozy crept slowly out; each with a hand on Carla’s back, all behind an aide de camp carrying the designer’s Legion of Honor on a velvet cushion.

Carefully choreographed and elegantly stage managed by Dominque Deroche, the funeral was also a fitting final gift from Yves’ famously loyal equipe.

There was a painfully awkward moment when one cure referred to the “coffin of Mr. Berge,” and then shakily corrected himself. It followed a homily delivered by Pere Roland Letteron, who bore a curious resemblance to Uncle Junior in the Sopranos.

A crowd of several thousands had gathered outside amid tight security that featured rooftop marksmen and a closed-down Rue St Honore, this city’s shopping street par excellence. Guests knew the hearse had arrived by the heavy applause outside. Scores of workers, white coated or in shirts sleeves, hung from almost every window apposite the church; outside of which a giant screen projected YSL shows and then the service live.

The clapping was even louder as Saint Laurent’s remains were placed back in the hearse, to make his final voyage to cremation. His ashes will be scattered in the Majorelle Gardens of Marrakech, Morocco, where he kept his winter home.

Saint Laurent even said a few words; a tape of his responses to a Proust Questionnaire, an interrogation by his favorite author, that ricocheted through the curiously elongated church.

“Your favorite historic personality?”

“Mademoiselle Chanel,” responded the departed designer.

Berge hailed Saint Laurent as a French hero, the “scepter for France,” its greatest interpreter of beauty and style.

“But what I really admired the most was your honesty, rigor and exigency,” recalled Berge, comparing Saint Laurent’s genius with Le Notre or Matisse, and finishing; “On the marble, I'd like it just to say above your name, ‘Couturier Francais’.”

 

[capt.charly]

thanks for the info MissMagAddict !

 

[dhclam]

<In his own words...>

mind putting up <in his own word...> session from WWD too?
many thanks in advance.

 

[annamaria]

from: www.wwd.com

In His Own Words...

Observations by Yves Saint Laurent as told to WWD and its sister publication W magazine in scores of interviews through the years.
"How do I create clothes? I put my ideas on paper, which are later made up in toile and revised by me, if necessary. My best ideas come in the morning, when I wake up — and in absolutely quiet surroundings. My idea is 'woman' in general, and a collection must fit all types.''
— Yves Saint Laurent, 1957

"Art is a very big word for couture. It's a métier like any other, but a poetic métier.'' — 1963

"I don't think that the round woman is the modern woman. The woman today has bones — she is nervous. The woman of the 19th century was round. C'est fini the round. It is for Renoir.'' — 1966

"One thing you can be sure of, I'll not finish my career doing couture as I'm doing it now.'' — 1968

"Real fashion today comes from the young people manning the streets — those between 30 and 35. The difference between day and evening clothes is outdated. The new fashion freedom permits people to be as they are or as they want to be — to go to dinner, for instance, as they were in the morning in black jersey, or anything else. My new collection is based on the idea of the suit — the practical, modern, easy world of the suit. Not the suit as we've known it...a suit that will look different with a skirt or pants. And pants with coats are part of our life.'' — 1968

"So they have crowned me king. Look what happened to all the other kings in France.'' — 1968

"Recent political events, the reaction of young people to fashion and the way of life today make the haute couture a relic of the past. I do not want to find myself in the past — or in a stronghold cut off from everything. — 1968
"First nights at the theater...life on a yacht — all things like that belong to a society that no longer means anything...a society that is no longer à la mode. The Social Ladies are no longer significant.'' — 1968

"I have always done black. I don't do 'message' couture.'' — 1968

"The big difference between couture and ready-to-wear is not design. It is the fabrics, the handwork and the fittings. The act of creation is the same.'' — 1968

"In the future, men and women will dress more and more alike. I want to create clothes for women like men's clothes.'' — 1968

"It's démodé to expect to see a revolution each time — each collection.'' — 1969

"The drama is that there are so many stupid rich people. Luxury — so few know how to use it and make it respectable.'' — 1970

"I want to see elegant women...women aware that they are women. Finished are the hippie things...all those bits of folklore...those scarves. The street is terrifying now. Horrible.'' — 1970

"Look at all that advertising — you must buy these shoes to go with this bag to go with that belt. Such advertising takes people for imbeciles. The results? The young don't shop in the big stores anymore.'' — 1970

"I did not think that in a profession as free as fashion that one could meet so many people so narrow-minded and reactionary, petty people paralyzed by taboos. But I am also very stimulated by this scandal because I know that which shocks is new.'' — February 1971, in reaction to universally scathing reviews of his spring couture collection.

"Women look like they've been working on the railroad too long.'' — 1971

"In spite of what people say, I believe I will save the couture and not kill it by making it return to its original meaning, which is privacy, rarity and quietness.'' — 1971

"I adore rtw. It's alive, it's quick, it's daring. The challenge is to make a raincoat that looks just as good on a girl of 15 as on a woman of 60.'' — 1971
"For the first time, I feel liberated. I began to feel boxed in. In the couture, you strive for one put-together look. But women don't want that studied look today.'' — 1971

"Everyone else is copying me, so I am copying myself." — 1973

"Pants are simply not important anymore. There are only jeans today.'' — 1976

"Maybe I am ill, but are you so well every day of the year?''

— 1977, denying published reports that he was too ill to design his own collection.

"Hats are amusing....They are always droll, tongue-in-cheek. At night, the amusing is essential." — 1978

"I have said before that the most beautiful makeup of a woman is passion. But cosmetics are easier to buy.'' — 1978

"There is a feeling of frustration in fashion with things that only last a season and die. I try, as I advance, to make something that will last, that will be passed from one generation to another.'' — 1978

"It's on my shoulders that the work hangs. After all, I couldn't do it without the house, the ateliers. The ateliers are vital. But it is my responsibility to create. And working on a collection, I imagine what it must be like for a writer trying to write a novel, or a director making a film....The more ideas you have, the worse it is.'' — 1978

"Now that I've reached maturity, at 42, in my work, it's the work that possesses me.'' — 1978

"Humor is the vital element. My message is humor combined with total refinement.'' — 1978

"For two or three years, I have dreamed of opening a department store called Yves Saint Laurent where everything I make is sold together. And I would design the building, the interior, the furnishings for the store, the logos, everything. That's the future.'' — 1978

"The one thing I lack in my life is to live. In my youth, I never discovered life. Life is to be lived when one is young, and truly, I've never lived.'' — 1978
"I'm bored — and angry — with people who just design clothes for the runway. It's a massive deception, and one a lot of people have fallen for. Some of the Paris designers are doing two collections each season — one for the runway and another for the showroom. I think that belittles the idea of fashion and soils everyone in a bizarre, unamusing joke.'' — 1979

"One can't work in fashion for self-amusement or take it lightly....Fashion is a profession that devours a man....When you're young, it's more amusing to work in fashion. You can be carefree. You also think you know your work better than you actually do. There is also a moment when you discover you don't even know who you are.'' — 1980

"Some people say New York is not really American but another little country. How untrue. New York is the most American of all. It is big, powerful, busy, varied, unbelievably energetic and so exciting.'' — 1980

"I am not a young lion now, I am an old lion. Perhaps a fox.'' — 1980

"I remember when trousers were shaped like trumpets [bell-bottoms]. Perhaps, it was amusing at the time as a fashion, but styles like this are gimmicks, they are not real and cannot last. Classics continue all the time because they have style, not 'fashion.''' — 1981

"My Paris is refinement, and there is no world that is refined that is not also melancholy.'' — 1983

"People think decadence is debauched. Decadence is simply something very beautiful that is dying. It's a beautiful flower that is dying, and sometimes you have to wait a very long time for another flower to come along.'' — 1986

"What a woman needs is a black turtleneck sweater, a straight skirt and a man to love her.'' — 1989

"I've worked all my life to found a fashion house worthy of France. I did so without concession or compromise.'' — 1993, upon selling the house to Sanofi.

"I'm happy to be copied, otherwise I wouldn't be doing my job well.'' — 1998
"[Christian Dior was] my master, who was instrumental in revealing to me the secrets and mysteries of haute couture. I do not forget Balenciaga, Schiaparelli, and, of course, Chanel, who taught me so much and who, as we all know, liberated women. It was this that enabled me, years later, to give women supremacy and, in a way, to liberate fashion." — 2002

"In many ways, I feel that I have created the wardrobe of the contemporary woman and that I have participated in the transformation of my era. I have done so through clothes, which are certainly less important than music, architecture, painting or many other art forms, but it is nonetheless what I have done. Like Chanel, I have always accepted copies and I am extremely proud that women the world over today wear pantsuits, smoking suits, peacoats and trenchcoats....I have believed for a long time now that fashion is not merely there to embellish women. Similarly, I utterly reject the fantasies of those who seek to satisfy their egos through fashion." — 2002

"[Le smoking] made women more powerful — in their conquest. I remember when Françoise Hardy wore a smoking to the opera in Paris. Scandal. People screamed and hollered. It was an outrage." — 2003

 

[nanker_phledge]

I don't know if it's been posted but jalougallery is giving access to their special Yves Saint Laurent 'L'Officiel' retrospective :

http://patrimoine.jalougallery.com/lofficiel-1000-modeles-numero_22-2002-detail-28-1115.html

They really did a fantastic job on that one.

In bonus, Elle has put online some of Yves Saint Laurent's old interviews videos :

http://www.elle.fr/elle/mode/dossie...urent-en-videos/(gid)/648183/(article)/648192


The videos links feature in the little grey box.

The best one is the one featuring Yves Saint Laurent's reply to Mademoiselle Chanel's accusation of him copying her work.

 

[BerlinRocks]

^Nanker... thanks
I saw the Elle Hommage to YSL... (we discussed about this in the magazine thread)
you were right.... Elle Hommage to YSL is very disappointing.... I really thought they would do something bigger, w/ a lot of hommages etc. but not really. I didn't buy it yet, I'll buy it today or tomorrow....
but it's not huge huge as i would imagine....

 

[Diorette]

French ELLE June 9, 2008


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[Diorette]

French ELLE June 9, 2008




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[CholoChic]

Thank u, thank you, so lovely!

 

[BerlinRocks]

^^ Esther is AMAZING in that black transparent blouse....
She was soo good in his shows!

 

[Diorette]

French ELLE June 9, 2008


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[Diorette]

French ELLE June 9, 2008


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[Diorette]

French ELLE June 9, 2008


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[tboy34]

This man was my idol growing up. I wanted to be a fashion designer when I was a kid. Yves was my idol and I just related to his work. This is the saddest thing I have ever endured. I sometimes wonder what my singing idol thinks of this. She wore his clothes so much during the years. It's truly sad. I miss him.