Name: Yves Saint Laurent
ISBN: 9780006383963

Alice Rawsthorn

Yves Saint Laurent

Emmett

Interestingly researched, and in complete disregard of its lackluster blurb. With biographies of famous people one is rather familiar with, the fun part is seeing what facts have been put together in each volume. Rawsthorn weaves together her eponymous figure's personal history with the wider world of politics (French and international) and its effects on the fashion industry - the book's title seems refer as much to the brand-name as it does the designer. (Consequently half of the time the book centers on Pierre Bergé doing business. A necessary and illuminating exploration, perhaps, but it at its most concentrated seems so many miles away from Yves doing goodness knows what.) The serious affairs are peppered with details that are intriguing or disarmingly amusing - from Saint Laurent writing prose and poetry (none of which, to this reader's knowledge, has ever been published which is a real shame given Anthony Burgess' praise of a manuscript he stole a glance at - 'the intricacy of the sentence construction, the love of rare words, the hints of a mental complexity not usually associated with a dress designer'), to one of the Moujiks sinking its teeth into the leg of an interviewer from the New Yorker. Still, it is his personality, his problems, quirks, and casually mentioned details like the fact that he watches Visconti's films and the films of other favourite directors on video in his bedroom, that continue to captivate and trouble. As a figure lost in time, Saint Laurent is far from a solved mystery, even after an almost 400-page biography.