Designs for Deneuve fetch R14m at sale

LUMINOUS French screen beauty, Catherine Deneuve’s wardrobe of Yves Saint Laurent haute couture pieces, made especially for her over 40 years, sold for 900625 euros (about R14.7million) on auction in Paris.

On January 24 this year during Haute Couture Fashion Week, Christie’s held the five-hourlong auction of 129 ensembles made by Yves Saint Laurent for his favourite private client. Every lot put on auction by Deneuve was sold after a staggering 4500 visitors had attended the preview.

For nearly half a century, Deneuve and the world-renowned fashion designer were close friends. In 2002, at an event to mark the 40th anniversary of Saint Laurent’s career in haute couture, the French star told the homosexual designer: “My most beautiful love affair is with you.”

At his fashion shows Deneuve always sat front and centre in the private clients’ row, supporting her friend and wearing his couture designs. The star was his first customer at his Saint Laurent’s new Prêt-à-Porter store, Rive Gauche, when it opened in 1967, and remained his muse until his death in 2008.

Deneuve and the couturier originally met in 1965 at the suggestion of Deneuve’s husband at the time, photographer David Bailey. “I was invited to be presented to Queen Elizabeth,” she remembers, “and my husband suggested that I ask Yves Saint Laurent for an evening dress.”

At the designer’s funeral at St Roch Church near the Louvre in 2008, Deneuve, now 75, read a tributary poem by Walt Whitman.