The Beautiful Fall: Lagerfeld, Saint Laurent, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris
Homosexuality plays center stage in this excerpt from the dramatic story of the high-chic fashion wars in Paris in the 1970s.
by Alicia Drake
Clockwise from upper left: Karl Lagerfeld in bathing costume, photo by Antonio Lopez; Jacques de Bascher and Lagerfeld, photo by Guy Marineau; Saint Laurent and his muses Lou Lou de la Falaise and Betty Catroux, photo by Guy Marineau
Chapter 6: 1971
As homosexuality bounded forth with delight from the smoking ruins of an authoritarian society, so there was a new perception of homosexuality within fashion. Up until now fashion and homosexuality’s interdependence had been conducted on furtive and euphemistic terms. Homosexual couturiers such as Monsieur Dior and Monsieur Balenciaga had “friends,” not lovers. Saint Laurent and Bergé were one of the first homosexual couples in fashion to live and work openly as such. From now on in fashion, as Maxime de la Falaise remembers, “It was the period of homosexual outage. Suddenly they were the fabulous ones, they were the attractive ones; no straight man was attractive.”
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