From Spring Collections To Spring Pictures: Homoerotic Sketches of Yves Saint Laurent

Pornography? I don't know what that is. Pornography, eroticism, love, it's all the same to me - this was an answer from the iconic couturier to the interviewer Bianca Jagger when she asked Saint Laurent frankly about his attitude to adult movies. Love, in its physical and Platonic manifestations, by all means, was a driving force of his genius. Among hundreds of thousands of his sketches, there was a homoerotic portfolio created in the 1960s-1970s that some people claim to be stolen by Fabrice Thomas, the designer's last lover, and others - to be given to Thomas by Saint Laurent himself.

Fig. 1. Young Yves Saint Laurent at work (businessoffashion.com)

Fig. 2. Saint Laurent with his muses Loulou de la Falais (left) and Betty Catroux (right); wordpress.com

Fig. 3. Dress inspired by Romanian Blouse of Matisse (radiofrance.fr)

Fig. 4. Jacket inspired by Van Gogh? (P1) (christies.com)

Fig. 5. Jacket inspired by Picasso (doitinparis.com)

Fig. 6. Pop art dress (denverartmuseum.org)

Fig. 7. Mondrian dress (whatculture.com)