Yves Saint Laurent Latest Collection Fall/Winter 2012-13

Special ‘good bye’ dedication to Stefano Pilati for his final YSL show - Fall/Winter 2012-2013 womenswear - by photographer Carlotta Manaigo.YSL Founded in 1961, Yves Saint Laurent is one of the great fashion names of the 20th century.The first couture house to introduce the concept of luxury prêt-à-porter in a 1966 collection called ‘Rive Gauche’, Yves Saint Laurent revolutionized the

Loulou de la Falaise, Muse to Yves Saint Laurent Dies at 63

A Muse is Gone...

On Saturday, one of the most stylish women in the world, Loulou de la Falaise, passed away. de la Falaise was, as we all know, Yves Saint Laurent's muse, creative partner and friend. She was always by his side, at work or play during all of his glorious years. Her death was announced by none other than the Yves Saint Laurent-Pierre Berge Foundation. Cause of death was not given. She was only 63 years old.

Perfect Three: Loulou de la Falaise, right, with Yves Saint Laurent and Betty Catroux at the opening of Saint Laurent’s first London boutique in 1969.

Loulou de la Falaise was born to an Anglo-Irish fashion model and a French marquis. Known for her unique Boho Aristocratic Chic style, combining her love of bright colors and lots of chunky accessories. She was a risk taker when it came to fashion. Only de la Falaise could throw on a impeccably tailored Yves Saint Laurent Haute Couture jacket under a brighty colored blouse, high-waisted French sailor pants and THIRTY multi-colored bracelets, plus a scarf around her head--and make it look effortless.

Harem Bride: Speaking of being a Fashion Risk-taker--take a look at the photo above: It's Loulou at her wedding to French writer Thadee Klossowski de Rola (her second husband). She wore a white, red with gold trim harem ensemble topped off with an incredible feathered and be-jeweled turban--all from Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche.

Loulou de la Falaise, Yves Saint Laurent and Betty Catroux

She began working for Saint Laurent around 1972, designing accessories. She remained with the house until around 2000, after the sale of the brand’s ready-to-wear and perfume operations to Gucci Group. Saint Laurent retired in 2002. It is said that Loulou inspired YSL to create his famous tuxedo for women, Le Smoking, as well as his scandal-causing transparent blouses.

Party Days: Marina Schiano, Loulou de la Falaise and Yves Saint Laurent at the launch of Yves Saint Laurent’s Opium fragrance in 1978. The party took place on a 350-foot boat — dubbed “The Peking” — in downtown New York, for which 800 invitations were printed and hand-delivered. It was estimated to cost $100,000, but sources estimated that it was closer to $250,000.

Iconoclastic Style: Loulou de la Falaise

Ms. de la Falaise started her own ready-to-wear line in 2002, same year YSL retired. She had two Loulou de la Falaise shops in Paris and her line was also carried in stores like Bergdorf Goodman. She eventually reduced that business to a single shop, on Rue Cambon in Paris, though she continued to make her jewelry for other shops and customers.

When Yves Saint Laurent passed away June 1, 2008, Loulou was there, at the funeral, of course (above) along with hundreds of mourners, including French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, the Empress Farah Dibah of Iran and many, many others.

Below is a photo tribute to Loulou:

Loulou de la Falaise at her Paris Flat.

Accesories Diva: Loulou de la Falaise

Dancing Diva: Loulou de la Falaise

Muse Model: Loulou de la Falaise

Best Friends: Yves Saint Laurent and Loulou de la Falaise in 1990.

Loulou will be missed but I'm sure her and Yves are happy to be reunited in Couture Heaven.

La Muse: Hélène Rochas

La Madame Rochas...

Hélène Rochas, with "Bat" Mask

Hélène Rochas, former director of the luxury house of Rochas, passed away at 84 earlier this month. An elegant woman, icon of Parisian chic and as Frédéric Mitterrand, France's minister of culture and communication, said in an official statement "....With her vanquished the last muse of the great couturiers and artistic circles from after the war, vanquished a past universe of splendor and sumptuous Parisian parties..."

Hélène Rochas

Here are some Hélène Rochas Facts:

Couturier Marcel Rochas

• Hélène Rochas helped turn the House of Rochas into a perfume POWERHOUSE.

• She became the third wife of couturier Marcel Rochas only a few months after she met him as an 18-year-old during the Nazi Occupation in Paris on the last Metro of the evening.

• Her mother was France's first woman dentist.

Model Lisa Fonssagrives wearing Rochas in an Irvin Penn Photograph, American Vogue 1950

• When he closed his own atelier in 1953, he took her to Chanel, Dior, and Balenciaga for her wardrobe.

• As a result of her husband's early death in 1955, she rebelled and cut her hair short (Mon Dieu!)

• Also, on his death in 1955 his wife Hélène, who was not yet 30, took charge of the business. Over the next fifteen years, she transformed the couture house into a multimillion dollar label, primarily through the addition of fragrances like Madame Rochas in 1960 and Eau de Rochas

• When her husband died, she was asked to become president of the company. She turned it into France's sixth largest perfumer by 1964.

• Hélène ran Rochas until 1971, when she sold it for a reported $40 million, and then returning from 1984 to 1989 as a fragrance consultant. Her influence over the brand continued through to its most recent incarnation with Olivier Theyskens’ appointment as creative director between 2002 and 2006, with him citing her as one of his inspirations.

Madame Rochas with Yves Saint Laurent, 1980's

• She wore a lot of Yves Saint Laurent Haute Couture. She is said to have bought three or four Saint Laurent Couture outfits (estimated at over a quarter of a million US dollars at today's rate) per season and 10-12 "boutique" or pret-a-porter/ready to wear ensembles.

Below are several more photos of the divine Mme Rochas:

Hélène Rochas, 1984: In Yves Saint Laurent Haute Couture--Color Blocking ahead of its time!

Hélène Rochas, bouffant, an Yves Saint Laurent Haute Couture gown...and a feathered fan

Andy Warhol Portrait of Hélène Rochas, 1974

A Rochas spokesperson said that Hélène’s death marked "the end of a myth, of an era… She was the muse of one of the great couturiers, the last to remain alive from that era."

First Fashion Look: YSL Resort 2012

Nautical a la Francais

Ahoy Mademoiselles: YSL Resort 2012

Stefano Pilati, Head Designer for the House of Yves Saint Laurent, just showed the YSL Resort 2012 Collection. It was Nautical in its theme. And as stated by Style.com:
The designer pointed out that Yves Saint Laurent did a nautical collection of his own around 1982. "He showed it with sheer stockings and pumps, and I loved the 'why not?' factor," Pilati said. Sheer hose and pumps were out for 2012, though, and bared legs and high wooden wedges that had commercial hit written all over them, were in.

Where's my Yacht: Looks from the YSL Resort 2012 Collection

Retro Vacation: Looks from YSL Resort 2012 Collection

Strong vibrant colors, such as lipstick red, canary yellow, royal blue, deep black. Prints were abundant in stripes (Nautical theme n'est pas?), as well as over-sized poppy flowers. The collection was indeed, sellable, commercial and on-mark with the 40's and 50's influences many fashion designers are into (including moi!). It was all very Très Chic and I am sure many a young Hollywood actress will be urging their stylists to have a look...

Poppy Love: Printed looks from the YSL 2012 Resort Collection

Eileen Gray’s Armchair

Fauteuil aux Serpents

The Celtic Sage has previously championed the Irish Designer Eileen Grey who designed many famous furniture pieces and the seminal Moderne building E-1027 at Roquebrune Cap Martin. She is now in the news because an armchair she designed sold by the estate of Yves Saint Laurent has sold at auction for almost €22m, the highest price ever paid for a piece of 20th Century furniture.

Wexford-born Eileen Gray was one of the most important architects and designers of the 20th century. She was an Irish aristocrat who inhabited a bohemian world and who was neglected for much of her career but whose work and achievements has been greatly appreciated with hindsight, particularly in Ireland where she was largely unknown in her lifetime as she mainly lived and worked in France. From her early laquer work to design classics like the Bibendum chair and her architectural masterpiece, E-1027, Eileen Gray's work was as individual as it was exciting. The Dutch magazine, Wendingen, declared in 1924: "Eileen Gray occupies the centre of the modern movement. In all her tendencies, visions and expressions she is modern."


Eileen Gray Snake Chair

After her father’s death in 1900, Gray moved to Paris with two friends from the Slade, Jessie Gavin and Kathleen Bruce, and continued her studies at the Académie Julian and the École Colarossi. For the next few years she shuttled between Paris and the family’s homes in London and Ireland, but moved back to London in 1905 when her mother became ill.

During her stay in London, Gray returned to the Slade but found drawing and painting less and less satisfying. One day she came across a lacquer repair shop run by a Mr Charles on Dean Street in Soho. Allured by the antique Chinese and Japanese lacquer screens in the shop, Eileen asked if she could learn the rudiments of lacquer working. By the time she returned to Paris in 1906, she was obsessed by the art of lacquer and, thanks to Mr Charles’ contacts, had an introduction to a young lacquer craftsman, Sugawara. He came from Jahoji, a village in northern Japan famous for its lacquer work and agreed to teach her. In 1907, Gray found a spacious first floor apartment at 21 rue Bonaparte where she could live and work and persuaded her mother to increase her allowance so that she could afford the rent. Three years later, Gray bought the apartment outright and thereafter it became her main home.


Le Corbusier, his wife Yvonne and Jean Badovici in E.1027 with one of Corbusier's murals in the background

Gray studied with Sugiwara for four years. Lacquer work was not only painstaking, but perilous. Like many people who come into close contact with it, she contracted a painful ‘lacquer disease’ on her hands. Slowly she refined her technique to create stark forms with simple geometric decorations. This simplicity was, however, as much a product of the complexity of the process as of Gray's aesthetic preferences. It was not until 1913 that she felt confident enough to exhibit her work by showing some decorative panels at the Salon des Artistes Décorateurs. They attracted the attention of the Duchess of Clermont-Tonnerre and the couturier Jacques Doucet, who bought one of her panels at the Salon and commissioned other pieces of lacquer work from Eileen for his Paris apartment.

The leather armchair standing at just 24 inches high and designed by Eileen Grey 90 years ago has been sold for almost €22m. It is a record for a piece of 20th century furniture and, in fetching six-and-a-half times its pre-auction estimate at Christie's in Paris, the chair proved a welcome tonic for a world art market worried about the economic climate.

"We're absolutely amazed by what's happened," Edward Dolman, Christie's managing director, said of the sale. "There are still a lot of extremely wealthy people out there." The unique piece, created by Wexford-born designer Eileen Gray between 1917 and 1919, was the highlight so far of a three-day sale of artworks collected by the late designer Yves Saint Laurent and his partner. The first two days have brought in more than €300m in sales, another world record.


Eileen Gray

Gray was first to become know for the lacquer technique she developed, a technique that combined the Asian lacquer tradition and its motifs with a contemporary modernist aesthetic. By 1912-1913 she was already becoming a name, and her luxurious screens, tables, and door panels sold well and were exhibited.

In the hour before the chair was sold, another piece by Ms Gray briefly held the title of the most-expensive piece of 20th century design sold at auction, when a New York dealer paid €4m for a sideboard dating from 1915 to 1917.

But there was no doubting the real star item on offer. Known as the Fauteuil aux Serpent or "snakes' armchair" because of the ornate sculptures on its sweeping armrests, the one-off rounded brown leather piece was designed by Ms Gray when she was in her early 30s and after she had moved from Enniscorthy to London to study art.

She became renowned for the luxurious finish of her lacquered furniture, but it was not until after her death in 1976 that she was truly recognised as one of the most important furniture designers and architects of the early 20th century. The buyer was the same dealer who had sold it to Mr Saint Laurent in the early '70s. Cheska Vallois raised his bid in increments of €500,000 to see off a phone rival with a bid of €21.9m, and was applauded by the 1,000 people present.

The highest amount ever paid for a piece of furniture was €27.5m - paid for an 18th century Badminton cabinet in 2004. "It is a fabulous price," Philippe Garner, Christie's international head of 20th Century Decorative Art and Design, said yesterday.

"The sale was an homage to the great personalities, designers, collectors and patrons who so marked their era in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s and to the pioneering vision of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé as collectors."

Ms Gray flitted between London and Paris for much of her life and had a colourful personal life, taking both male and female lovers, but never marrying. She died at the age of 98.


Yves Saint Laurent

Yves Saint Laurent was hailed as a 20th century cultural icon who revolutionised the way women dressed. The reclusive Saint Laurent's couture creations won global fine art status and he was widely considered to be one of an elite club of designers including Christian Dior and Coco Chanel who made Paris the fashion capital of the world. From Princess Grace of Monaco to the actress Catherine Deneuve, Saint Laurent's creations adorned many famous women but he was also the first designer to make luxury labels accessible to a wider audience through innovative read-to-wear collections.

Saint Laurent and Mr Bergé began collecting art in the 1950s, at a time when the young designer was gaining a worldwide reputation with the fashion house Christian Dior. He needed art "like water to survive", in the words of one dealer, and acknowledged that his creations were inspired by his passion for paintings. Yves Saint Laurent died of cancer aged 71 in June last year.




Jardins Majorelle, Marrakech

Mr Bergé said the decision to sell the collection was taken because without him "it has lost the greater part of its significance". The proceeds are to help create a new foundation for Aids research. Yves St. Laurent and Pierre Bergé were wonderful patrons of the arts and in 1980 purchased the wonderful gardens and house laid out by the French Painter Jacques Majorelle in Marrakech. St Laurent, who was born and grew up in Algeria, had a particular affinity with the Maghreb. They had been visitors to and admirers of the Majorelle garden and they saved it from speculators who had devastated the inheritance of Marrakech’s gardens. Jacque Majorelle’s former house now contains a museum of Islamic art collected by Yves and his partner.

For more about Eileen Gray and the house she designed which became Le Corbusier’s obsession see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/09/e-1027-roquebrune-cap-martin.html



E-1027, Roquebrune Cap Martin

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