Loulou & Yves

  Pierre married Madison Cox in March 2017 in a private civil ceremony near Deauville. Pierre, who suffered from myothapy, recited his vows in a wheelchair. Pierre and Yves’s marriage had made Pierre Yves’s legal heir; now Madison was Pierre’s. The circle was closed. Madison would be a very, very rich man. For all the clucking, their union was met with a nod, confirming what everyone already knew.

  Whatever the fiscal strategy, Pierre was determined to make one last symbolic point about his and Madison’s clamorous, forty-year relationship. Pierre hadn’t danced around the subject of Madison, making bracingly clear in letters he wrote to Yves that in the hierarchy of his heart, he and Madison shared the same berth (Yves was already dead, so the letters couldn’t be mailed). The three men had been locked in a sublimely tortured triangle so textbook, it was almost trite. La Callas could not have sung their story better.

  But as weddings go, Pierre and Madison’s was a pretty cynical affair. Didn’t Madison already have a partner? He did, as he had told the Times. By now he and Jaimal Odedra had been together eleven years. Odedra had every right to feel humiliated but knew his part, silently disappearing into the wings, erased from Madison’s life amid headlines lauding “le ‘jardinier des milliardaires’” for being “the husband that Yves Saint Laurent never was for Pierre Bergé.” Unlike Pierre, Madison was said to have a horror of public display, notwithstanding two major profiles he cooperated with and that ran within months of each other in The Wall Street Journal magazine and the Times’ T. His bluff was called. Women’s Wear Daily roasted him. Madison’s clients liked that he wasn’t grand or fashiony—forget skinny jeans, his pants could almost be Dockers. Anne Bass let him loose on a thousand acres in Litchfield County, Connecticut. Nancy Novogrod, a former magazine editor who longed for nothing more than to be seen as employing the right talent, expressed interest in hiring Madison, also in Litchfield. But not everyone, it seems, can have a Madison Cox garden. The message came back that he had given Bass an exclusive.

  Pierre and Madison’s new life at Villa Mabrouka, the grander of Pierre’s two homes in Tangier, was brief: In less than six months, Pierre was dead. Many were unable to resist making a quick mental inventory of all that could become Madison’s. The paintings. The furniture. The cash. But those who pictured him ferrying luxuriously between the addresses Pierre kept in Paris, Normandy, St.-Rémy-de-Provence, Marrakech and Tangier were disappointed. The dream dacha Pierre built on the English Channel was not his; he simply retained the right to use the folly after selling it and Château Gabriel, on the same grounds, after Yves’s death. And all but one of the other residences—including Mabrouka, which had been on and off the market with an asking price in the $10-million range—would be sold to benefit the foundation, whose presidency passed from Pierre to Madison. Not that anyone was terribly worried about Madison’s housing. Villa Oasis, the impossibly lavish Orientalist fantasy where Pierre lived in Marrakesh, belongs to the foundation, but is Madison’s in all but name, as guardian of Yves’s artistic legacy.

  Madison’s friends, in turn, guarded him—ferociously. If they were in wagon-circling mode before Pierre died, now they were shut down completely.

  ————————

  RICARDO BOFILL If Bergé’s responsible for Loulou and Thadée’s marriage, he did a good job. Thadée was Loulou’s chauffeur, he looked after Anna, the house. He lit the candelabras every day. I could never do that. Loulou and I remained friends always, till the end.

  THADÉE KLOSSOWSKI DE ROLA We were never bored. I remember when we had friends for the weekend at our country house, they often didn’t want to leave on Sunday night. Loulou was furious. We were never as happy as when

  it was just the two of us with Anna … the cherry on the cake, the miracle child …

  She railed a bit because she thought I didn’t talk enough about her [in the Egoï ste excerpts]… It’s funny, because I thought [Anna] would be embarrassed to read [Vie rê vé e]. Usually people don’t like immersing themselves in their parents’ sex life. But Anna told me she wasn’t surprised, as if she already knew it all by heart.

  ANNA KLOSSOWSKI DE ROLA I always had the feeling I was the daughter of an extraordinary couple … I loved my rather idiosyncratic childhood, an only child surrounded by lots of adults, everything a joyous mess, with a father who let me do everything I wanted and a mother who was much more rebellious and rock-’n’-roll than I was. When I was fifteen, she absolutely wanted me to have my navel pierced! I was more conventional. Whenever I asked her about her histoire d’amour with Papa, she answered, “I always knew …”

  THADÉE KLOSSOWSKI DE ROLA The tragedy of this journal for me, obviously it was absolutely impossible to publish these pages about people I lived with, loved very much … You don’t blab about your friends … At the same time, it became clear to me that my wife was dying. If she’d lived, I’d never have done it. After she died, so as not to sob all day, I went back to work on

  my notebooks, finishing in … a state of madness … grieving … I rediscovered Loulou, my wife, in these old pages. It did me good … Rereading the diary, I saw it was a love story … The only reason I kept it was to talk about Loulou and to whine about the fact that I couldn’t write.

  ANNABELLE D’HUART We used to feel sorry for Thadée, he was so silent. Then when his journals came out, he surprised everyone by opening his mouth, giving interviews like a veteran writer, so different than we’d thought. I thought he’d suffered from his life with Loulou—pas du tout!

  JEAN-NOëL LIAUT Reading Vie rê vé e, you realize here is a group in which no one likes anyone, no one has any heart, everyone is cynical. Loulou comes off like a one-dimensional moron. The book’s an embarrassment. Wrong end of the telescope. John Stef was so baffled, he asked me to summarize it for him.

  JOHN STEFANIDIS Thadée gives an erroneous idea of Loulou’s life, not giving credence to the fact that she, or indeed Clara, worked as hard as they did, whereas he was drifting about playing pinball and walking the dogs and thinking about writing. The diaries are a reflection of his life then, not theirs.

  Martine Boutron necklace of crystal, stone beads and mounted metal mesh in the form of a bird. “Braque” collection, 1988. Kendra & Allan Daniel Collection. © Kendra & Allan Daniel Collection. Courtesy of the holders.

  ALYNE DE BROGLIE Everyone knows Baba is Clara in the book. Giving Clara a pseudonym was a monumental act of cowardice. If Thadée did it to spare her, he hurt her more than if he’d used her name. His portrayal of Loulou isn’t generous—she’s always blind under-the-table drunk… What surprised us all was that with such a great-looking mother and father, Anna isn’t… She has the small faults of both her parents, including his nose.

  When I’d run into Loulou in the aughts, I didn’t think she’d aged well. A little bitter, a little meaner. We’d exchange numbers, but neither of us wanted to see the other. I knew she’d try to tell me how whoppie everything was, and I wanted a real exchange. Plus, I smelled the drugs. That dry mouth she went around with was unbearable. For some people, life isn’t worth living unless there are streamers and music and circus clowns. But even if that was true of Loulou, she was more than what Thadée writes, that she was someone who got sloshed every night.

  KATELL LE BOURHIS The way I read it, he has a score to settle with Loulou, writing of her drunkenness, vomiting …

  CATHERINE SCHWAAB We did a big story at Paris Match when Loulou died, “La Deuxième mort de Saint Laurent.” Then Thadée’s book came out. The feeling is, he assassinated his wife. What do you want? It’s the fashion world.

  CAROLINE LOEB What I saw was how not well I was at the time, really in a state of distress. To see that written in black and white was very powerful.

  GABRIEL DE LA FALAISE I didn’t want to buy the book, so I borrowed a friend’s. Quel snobbism! “Ce soir, diner au Sept avec les Yves et les Kim.” Of

  the two million people in Paris, 150 know that Thadée’s referring to Kim d’Estainville and Hélène Roch
as, and most of them are dead.

  RICHARD DE LA FALAISE Like the critics, I find Thadée’s admissions amazing: I’m not very bright, and I’ve never done a stroke of work in my life. Am I wrong in saying that all Balthus’s money went to his Japanese wife, and that when she dies, it will go to their daughter—and Thadée will get nothing?

  MARIE-DOMINIQUE LELIèVRE Bergé signed off on Vie rê vé e before publication, as he had Laurence Benaïm’s biography of Yves. When Thadée’s book came out, he told me that Nicholas Weber’s biography of Balthus is a big joke. Thadée had never used de Rola, but Loulou dies and suddenly he does. It’s funny for two people so completely puffed up and zoned out to have produced such a wonderful daughter. Thadée was too lazy to copy out his diary on a computer and instead used voice-recognition software. He goes around with a yak shawl over his tweed jacket and still says things like, “In our milieu, one doesn’t work.” Bergé didn’t abandon Thadée after Loulou died. He lived off Pierre.

  ANNABELLE D’HUART What struck me is when Thadée writes that the reason he and Loulou married is because they were held together by unhappiness they wanted to put an end to; when he says Ricardo could no longer live with Loulou and it was out of the question for Loulou to live without Ricardo—I never knew any of that. Fernando never mentioned Ricardo in Loulou’s life. I never would have gone near her if he had.

  DIANE VON FURSTENBERG Everyone says Loulou and Thadée’s marriage was arranged, but so what? It doesn’t minimize what the relationship ended up being: a great success. Thadée loved Loulou maybe more at first, but then she loved him back. The biggest love of her life was Ricardo. Oh, maybe other than Thadée. But yes, she loved Ricardo. Loved him.

  ————————

  LOULOU Life has its stages … I seem to have hit places at the right moment … There was London in the ’60s—Ossie Clark, Mick Jagger—and then there was New York: Tanguy143 and the first Metropolitan opening of the Warhol show … Andy and Marisol144 turning up in jeans all splattered with paint. The Halston girls … all of us foreigners, all equally at home in three cities.

  ANDRÉLEON TALLEY Had she lived, Loulou would have found a way to survive, licensing her name, doing sheets, candles …

  JüRGEN DOERING I shouldn’t say this, but when you look at the time line, once Saint Laurent was gone, it was pretty much over for Loulou. She lived only three years more. She was too young to die. But when you’ve done what you have to do, are who you are … She and Saint Laurent were never victims.

  MARY RUSSELL When Saint Laurent retired, it was effectively over for Loulou. The ballet was finished. No more “é cole de.”

  ANNABELLE D’HUART She had a gift. She was a collagist and a great colorist, combining colors like a painter. But did she ever create a single new form? That’s where you see her limits. Too much comfort will do that. Constraint is good for creativity.

  KIM VERNON Loulou’s HSN clips are still on YouTube, but unfortunately her business wasn’t enough to sustain without her. Unless you’re a big name like Halston or Kenny Lane, you can’t be on HSN and dead, too.

  BETTY CATROUX I feel guilty that Loulou died before me. It’s so unjust. She was very measured in her craziness—which Yves and I weren’t: Yves and I were like animals! All the nonsense, the drinking and all the rest of it, Loulou did with restraint … I like everything that’s bad and that kills … I tried everything and liked practically nothing… [In 1998,] I was afraid my heart would give out. I didn’t want to become a drunk who ends up in the gutter. I realized I was destroying the people around me …

  Poor Yves, who lived only in the past, pining for all those lousy balls and over-refined women. It’s lucky he died. I wouldn’t say the same about Loulou … It makes me laugh [to see our lives mythologized]. We were snobinards … Our conversations were only about ourselves and the state of our souls. Times were different, sweeter. I’d be ashamed to live that life today, when one is aware of all the horrors happening every minute. But then I was so spaced out …

  DEBORAH ROBERTS For years, I kept the letter Loulou wrote Donald about skipping out of London and the Performance audition and her affair with Brian Jones in Tangier. I kept meaning to give it to her, and then she died and I threw it out. So stupid of me … There are millions of people who will tell you scabrous stories about Loulou, but I’m not one of them. You didn’t really know what motivated her. The appetites of a stevedore. Brave, always feetfirst without a net. She suffered a definite insecurity, which is why I always pictured her dancing on a tightrope over huge canyons …

  JEAN-LUC FRANÇOIS Loulou was fundamentally alone. Surrounded by people, but alone.

  FARIDA KHELFA Loulou had dignity, a rare-enough quality in fashion. She looked after everyone—Saint Laurent, her family—everyone but herself. You sensed a suffering, which she hid with her lightness. It’s wonderful to always appear gay and smiling, but you pay a price. Better to show what you feel. Better to not always be so aristo.

  LOULOU Smile, laugh and say nice things about people. It brings good luck.

  ALYNE DE BROGLIE In the fashion world, women take their vengeance posthumously, so when they talk about Loulou now, you have to be careful. She was a number two. Number twos are always interesting.

  JACQUES GRANGE If you asked Clara today, she’d have only compliments for Loulou. They got along after. It’s the truth. Truly, they did.

  CLARA SAINT I saw it coming from a long way off. Friends falling in love with each other’s boyfriends is a story that happens every day, it is almost banal … [Loulou and Thadée’s wedding ball] was, how can I put it, not a particularly amusing night for me; I went to the cinema with friends. But Loulou was the muse and so I find it normal that [Yves and Pierre] should throw a party for her when she gets married. What else could [Yves] do?

  LAURENCE BENAÏM Loulou without Saint Laurent? I have no idea what she would have become. It’s like asking me, “What if Dietrich hadn’t met Sternberg?”

  LOULOU I revolted against the word “muse” before, because of the famous idleness it implied: being very well-dressed, giving grand dinners and looking after oneself all the time. That’s not my thing at all… I thought [“muse”] sounded like one did nothing but breeze in after spending hours dressing, then buzzing off to lunch. Now I figure it means that during the years I was at Yves Saint Laurent there was a bit of my soul in the clothes… Today I like it. “Muse” means that a part of Yves’s work belongs to me. I’m integral to it. … I became his right hand. He never did anything without me … Now that Saint Laurent is part of history, it makes me a part of history.

  BEN BRANTLEY How stylish was she? Well, she wore clothes well, which is 80 percent of it, do you know? She’s often compared to Nancy Cunard, 145 with her stacks of ivory bracelets. I always suspected there was something more there. It seems like there wasn’t?

  PIERRE BERGÉ There is nobody like Loulou now because life is different now. It’s like asking if you could meet someone like Babe Paley now; it’s impossible.

  HELMUT NEWTON She was an influence for all of us.

  PETER DUNHAM How many other people from that era are you going to look back on as influential? No one’s going to remember Hélène Rochas or Dorothée Bis, whoever the fuck she is. But people will go back to images of Loulou and that innocent, carefree, pre-AIDS moment, sexual and women’s liberation combined in a chic, erotic, drug-infested way.

  CHRISTIAN LACROIX Loulou and Maxime were the last of the artist-aristocrats. Maxime took a brush to every available surface in her house in Provence. It reminded you of Bloomsbury and the Omega Workshops. The clothes Loulou designed had a sort of dandysme fé minin. She’ll be remembered like Baba de Faucigny-Lucinge is remembered, like the Belle Époque courtesans Liane de Pougy and Cléo de Mérode are remembered, by people who read whatever the equivalent of Philippe Jullian’s146 diaries is fifty years from now. But the context will always be Saint Laurent.

  INÈS DE LA FRESSANGE The world prefers aura to accomplishment, demi
gods to creators. People who don’t have to work hard are looked up to more than people of concrete merit. As a mannequin at Chanel, I received floods of gifts, flowers, letters. In Japan, I couldn’t leave my hotel because of the crowds. People were in tears. “Ahhh, Inè s-san, Inè s-san.”

  The flowers stopped the minute I became a designer. Instead, people sent me résumés. Elizabeth Taylor is famous for her diamonds, not for how she played Cleopatra. Nobody remembers Jeanne Toussaint, a total genius. Mme. Vreeland’s legacy isn’t the magazine she edited, but the flamboyant, over-the-top personnage. Loulou’s elegance was in the bone. She had a crazy talent for accessories. But it’s the pictures of her by Bailey, Newton, Avedon that people retain. She could have commanded a lot of money in fashion. She should have died rich.

  AUDREY SECNAZI Thadée has his pension and half of Loulou’s. He’s a responsibility for Anna. I don’t think she wants him to stay alone. She’s the one who took charge and talked to the doctors when her mother was sick, not him. Anna has her feet on the ground, which is funny, when you consider Thadée and Loulou, so disconnected from reality. Poets, in their way.

  Dominique Roux’s trompe l’oeil conceit of draped fabric rendered in bronze, 1982. Some six necklaces were made, finished with 18- or 24-karat gold and lightly patinated. Loulou wore one in Yves’s favorite photograph of her (cover and p. 284). Kendra & Allan Daniel Collection. © Christopher Petkanas.

  JACQUES GRANGE Loulou is like Natalia Paley, the image of a certain tranche of society in the thirties. She made movies, but that’s not what we remember her for. We remember her for being beautiful and wellborn.