Celebration

The(ir) Blurb...

An opulent and immersive behind-the-scenes look at haute couture designer Yves Saint Laurent’s final show before his death, told through the eyes of longtime business partner Pierre Bergé, which was suppressed for the last two decades.

Filmed from 1998 to 2001, this portrait of fashion colossus Yves Saint Laurent's final show was screened only once in 2007 before it was blocked by YSL's business (and on-and-off romantic) partner Pierre Berge, who objected to the couturier's portrayal as frail and not quite all there, and to his own as something of a supercilious, control-freaky pill. (The dynamic between the two is said to have inspired Paul Thomas Anderson's treatment of Daniel Day-Lewis and Lesley Manville's characters in Phantom Thread.) But Berge relented in 2015 (and died in 2017), so Celebration is at last being widely released. Director Olivier Meyrou said the experience of filming the reticent designer was "very close to a wildlife documentary... Just like big cats must sooner or later come to a watering hole," Meyrou spent a great deal of time at his atelier patiently waiting for an appearance. So naturally the atelier's staff come off more vividly, always ready to rip out a lining or make infinitesimal adjustments to a garment according to le maitre's specifications. YSL lingered until 2008, but this exploration of his final collection is his true farewell, and the end of an era in French fashion.