The iconic French actress' fabulous wardrobe with pieces from Yves Saint Laurent haute couture, specially made for her for over 40 years, is being auctioned by Christie's a Paris during the Haute Couture Fashion Week. Meredith Etherington Smith.
For almost half a century Ekaterina Deneuve, the bright and award-winning movie star, and Yves Saint Laurent, the world-renowned fashion designer, were close friends. In 2002, at an event to mark the 40th anniversary of Saint Laurent's career in high fashion, the French actor told him: "My most beautiful love story is with you."
During his fashion shows, Deneuve always sat in the front row of the private clients row, supporting her friend and wearing his couture designs, which he had created especially for her. The star was his first customer at his new ready-to-wear shop, Rive Gauche, when it opened in 1967, and remained Saint Laurent's muse until her death in 2008.
Il January 24 in Paris, during Haute Couture Fashion Week, Christie's will auction around 130 of the haute couture ensembles YSL has made for its favorite private client, along with several Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche pieces, with around 170 additional lots offered in a special online sale (January 23-30).
The star and the couturier originally met in 1965, at the suggestion of Deneuve's husband at the time, photographer David Bailey. “I was invited to be introduced to Queen Elizabeth,” he recalls, “and my husband suggested I ask Yves Saint Laurent for an evening gown.”
The 2002-year-old arrived at the Saint Laurent couture atelier on rue Spontini in Paris holding a photo from his Russian collection from the previous year, which he agreed to recreate for her. That long white crepe dress with a red embroidery panel was the beginning of a long partnership and close friendship, which extended far beyond her last couture show in XNUMX.
The couple's relationship spanned Deneuve's film career when Saint Laurent designed the costumes for one of the actor's most celebrated films, Louis Buñuel's 1967 classic Belle de Jour, followed by La Sirène du Mississipi (Mississipi Mermaid), directed by François Truffaut in 1969 .
Among the highlights of the collection – which includes coats, suits, dresses and accessories – is a 1969 YSL beaded evening dress, spring/summer couture, worn by Deneuve when she met Alfred Hitchcock the same year, in the company of François Truffaut. The dress was later exhibited in the 1993 Yves Saint Laurent retrospective at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
"We write to each other often," the designer told Elle magazine in 1992. "I call her 'Catherine, my sweet,' and she sends me pale roses." At the designer's funeral in the Saint Roch church near the Louvre in 2008, Deneuve read a poem by Walt Whitman, which was broadcast to the crowd of 1.000 outside via a giant screen.
The star and the couturier originally met in 1965, at the suggestion of Deneuve's husband at the time, photographer David Bailey. “I was invited to be introduced to Queen Elizabeth,” he recalls, “and my husband suggested I ask Yves Saint Laurent for an evening gown.”
The 2002-year-old arrived at the Saint Laurent couture atelier on rue Spontini in Paris holding a photo from his Russian collection from the previous year, which he agreed to recreate for her. That long white crepe dress with a red embroidery panel was the beginning of a long partnership and close friendship, which extended far beyond her last couture show in XNUMX.
“His consummate seriousness during the setups, coupled with his coy charm outside the atelier, made all the years we shared together so enchanting,” says Deneuve. “Our silent complicity, our crazy laughter and our melancholy brought us together.
“I had the privilege of having access to this world of luxury, of training my gaze and my taste alongside it. He has dressed me several times in films and I think Belle de Jour, in particular, owes a lot to him.” Catherine Deneuve is now selling her home in Normandy where she has kept this unique and private collection of Yves Saint-Laurent couture and accessories. “These are the clothes of a man so talented who only designed clothes to beautify women,” she says of her parting from these beloved creations.
