They Were Collectors

I feel like visiting a Paris apartment today. It's the home of a devoted couple, devoted to each other, and devoted to collecting.


Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berge co-founded the Yves Saint Laurent couture house in 1961. It closed in 2002, the year in which the Pierre Berge-Yves Saint Laurent Foundation was established. Berge became the sole owner of the collection in 2008, following the death of Saint Laurent in June, aged 71. Earlier in the year the two of them had formed a civil union.



What a life these two had together! And what a home they made!
Their lifelong collection has been auctioned off to great success in spite of the current global cooling in the financial markets.


Pierre Bergé: “The sale of the collection that I had built in partnership with Yves Saint Laurent draws to a close and has been a triumph. My expectations have been fully realized. I thank Christie’s for the organization of both the preview exhibitions and the sale itself in the setting of the Grand Palais. I offer my gratitude to the public who came in huge numbers and were prepared to queue patiently for many hours. The results of the sale exceed our highest expectations and confirm the potential of the Paris marketplace to rise to such an occasion. The results also demonstrate that even in a difficult economic climate, works of art of great quality preserve their power and their value.”


The proceeds will go to the Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent Foundation, and a new foundation that will be set up for scientific research and the fight against AIDS.


Here are a few photos of how they lived in Paris.


The art collection is staggering: Degas, Monet, Matisse, Gaugin, Picasso, Cezanne and Mondrian, Brancusi, Duchamp, Ensor, de Chirico, Gèricault, Dominique Ingres and Jacques-Louis David.


The furniture collection equally awesome: Eileen Gray, Emile Jaques Ruhlman, Gustave Miklos, Edgar Brandt, and Pierre Le Grain. But don't you love the white slipcovers Joni?


There is mystery about the identity of the final buyers. Those at the auction have included Bianca Jagger, Lord Linley and Roman Abramovich, but they are not thought to have purchased much. Most of the running has been made by two young, French, New York-based dealers, Philippe Ségalot and Franck Giraud, working on behalf of unnamed clients.


I love the mix of Impressionist and Modern art, and Oriental, Art Nouveau, Art Deco and French Furniture.


There are also old masters and 19th century drawings, 20th century decorative arts, Asian & Islamic Art and antiquities.


And don't forget the silver, miniatures, and objet d' vertu.


These are images from their Paris homes on rue de Babylone and rue Bonaparte.


The sale was held in one of the world's largest and most prestigious exhibition halls, the Grand Palais, off the Champs-Elysées. A staggering 33,000 people queued to see the collection. Access to the auction room had been strictly controlled, with potential buyers having to prove they had access to at least one and half million dollars in ready cash.



New artist records were set for Henri Matisse, Constantin Brancusi, Piet Mondrian, Marcel Duchamp and James Ensor. Christies reported that 70% of the buyers at that session were European, 30% from the US, and one individual from Asia; Russian collectors bought at least one of the most expensive lots.



Whew and Ooh la la!


I kiss a prayer up to them both.

Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent Foundation

Before Yves St. Laurent passed away this year, he transformed his Paris couture house into a museum with Partner Pierre Bergé, with the interior design done by Jacques Grange in 2004. The former couture house of Yves Saint Laurent, located at 5 avenue Marceau in Paris, is now a museum dedicated to art and fashion. Named for the designer and his partner, the Pierre Bergé-Yves Saint Laurent Foundation has permanent and revolving exhibitions.Paris-based designer Jacques Grange was asked to retain the couture house feel while updating the two main salons, once used for client fittings. A 1979 pencil drawing of Saint Laurent by Andy Warhol hangs in a salon.
The gilt statues depict the four seasons.
In one salon, which is used mainly for receptions, Grange hung a number of Saint Laurent costume sketches for the 1964 production of The Marriage of Figaro at the Théâtre de l’Odéon in Paris. The furniture remains from the couture house days but was restored.
Thousands of the designer’s sketches and photographs are kept in the paper archive room.
“Dialogue with Art,” the first show in the revolving exhibition space, features dresses from the vast collection of Saint Laurent originals. Various artists’ work will follow.
Wouldn't you just love to visit this little gem of a museum?

Farewell Yves St. Laurent

As he retired, he said: "I have known fear and the terrors of solitude. I have known those fair-weather friends we call tranquilizers and drugs. I have known the prison of depression and the confinement of hospital. But one day, I was able to come through all of that, dazzled yet sober."

Algerian born, Yves had many properties
in Marrakesh, including Jardins Majorelle

The 1970's

More recent photo, before he retired
with friend and muse Catherine Deneuve

In his studio with muse, friend,
and design assistant Loulou de la Falaise

One of the first couture designers to bring
high fashion to the masses:
Opium & Paris perfume; tuxedos for women; safari look;
rich peasant look; color block dresses-the Mondrian dress;
lately the Muse bag, and so much more...

Wearing the Safari look himself in the 60's
He created the idea of unisex dressing

At work with a friend

Boy genius

It was the sexual revolution

Yves Saint Laurent, who exploded on the fashion scene in 1958 as the boy-wonder successor to Christian Dior and endured as one of the best-known and most influential couturiers of the second half of the 20th century, died on Sunday at his apartment in Paris. He was 71. HERE
Are any three letters as elegant as YSL? When he was seventeen, Yves Saint Laurent began working for Dior, who referred to him as his dauphin. When Dior died suddenly four years later, Saint Laurent was made head of the fashion house but soon after was conscripted to serve in the Algerian war. Hazed by his rougher fellow soldiers, the fragile couture artiste lasted twenty days before he had a nervous breakdown. The army tried to cure him with electroshock therapy. When he returned to Dior, he found he had been replaced. He started his own house, giving rise to some of the most famous clothes in history: the Mondrian dress, "le Smoking," the tuxedo for women, the designer leather jacket, the sheath dress, the gold cape. For nearly twenty years he and his business manager Pierre Berge were lovers, and, because they are French, after they broke up they continued living together for another ten years. In 1983, Saint Laurent became the first living designer to be honored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art with a retrospective. In 1993, he and Berge sold the company for $600 million. Since his retirement in 2002, Saint Laurent has spent much of his time in Marrakesh, where he restored and opened to the public the vivid gardens originally designed by French expat Jacques Majorelle. From Band of Thebes:Fashion HERE
If you would like to see more terrific photos, go HERE