In the wake of Yves Saint Laurent coverage, with the new movie and all, The Cut published an exclusive excerpt from a brand new book by Kate Betts, a former Vogue editor and Harper's Bazaar editor-in-chief, called My Paris Dream: An Education in Style, Slang, and Seduction in the Great City on the Seine in which she recounts her time as a fashion journalist. The excerpt is a firsthand account of her visit with John Fairchild, the famous editor and publisher of Women's Wear Daily, to the studio of Yves Saint Laurent at a time in his career where his personal relevance was fading and he was recovering from the many meltdowns he experienced thanks to drugs and alcohol.
The excerpt is fucking buzzing. In the presence of a legend, as he speaks about his collection and couture designs, everything seems magnified. Betts also details the relationship that Fairchild had with YSL, one that had his publication championing the designer's works until a review didn't meet expectations and was banned from firsthand contact with the designer for two whole years. This was one of the first visits back to the studio after the hiatus. A closing portion describes YSL's presence and method:
Saint Laurent’s true gift was his ability to give his fantasies a material life of their own. He never actually described the dresses we had come to photograph, their fabrics, their shape, or their colors. He didn’t tell us anything about the haute couture collection he was preparing. So many designers rattled off names of muses, colors, artists, all in an effort to associate their designs with worthier images and icons. But Saint Laurent told a simple story. He gave his clothes meaning by putting them in a context, a place in which he could evoke a woman’s style, where she sat, why she wore a particular dress, how her hat kept the sun off her face and the lace bolero kept her cool.
You can read the full excerpt here and pick up the book, which released today.
