Does Pierre Bergé, known in america mostly as the longtime partner of designer yves saint Laurent, secretly rule France?
To say that Pierre Bergé is the former partner of Yves Saint Laurent is to state the obvious but miss the point. Yes, the 86-year-old industrialist was indeed the lover, the companion, and the corporate strategist of the legendary designer, who died in 2008. Personally and professionally, Bergé lingered in the shadows behind Saint Laurent for decades, transforming the unknown apprentice of Christian Dior into a worldwide sensation and standing by a tortured genius throughout his fatal descent into drug and alcohol addiction. The two technically separated in the late 1970s, but they were never really apart, even joining in a civil union just days before Saint Laurent’s death, as same-sex marriage was not yet legal in France. As Bergé said in a tearful eulogy at the designer’s funeral, in the presence of everyone who was anyone in France, “The divorce was inevitable, but the love never stopped.”
This story is from the September 2017 edition of Town & Country.
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This story is from the September 2017 edition of Town & Country.
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