On September 8, fashion tycoon Pierre Bergé, a member of the development team behind the Yves Saint Laurent empire in France, was unable to sleep at his home in Saint-Remy-de-Provence, southern France.
Berger, born in 1930, was the long-term partner of the late designer Saint Laurent, and in 1961, he and Saint Laurent co-founded the well-known brand Saint Laurent.
saint laurent and berger
Berger was passionate about collecting art and books, persistently campaigning for gay rights, and donating large sums of assets to AIDS research. After Saint Laurent's death in 2008, Berger decided to auction all the artworks of the fund under the two names. In 2008, in the special auction of "The Collection of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Berger" held at the Grand Palais in Paris, France, the rabbit head and rat head bronze statues from Yuanmingyuan were sold for 18 million euros respectively. The buyer was Chinese businessman Cai Mingchao. However, after the bidding, Cai Mingchao refused to pay on the grounds that "the auction item was illegally lost", and the auction was cancelled.
From ordinary young people from other provinces to industry tycoons, Berger can be described as a well-deserved "Phoenix Man". Le Monde wrote: “Few people are in complete control of their own destiny. But Berger has been doing this since he was a teenager. He left his environment, met well-known writers and painters, and became rich , and start your own adventure with the money you earn." On May 31 this year, 86-year-old Berger chose to marry Madison Cox, a 58-year-old American landscape architect who has been with him for several years. This practice actually continues Berger's philosophy of trying to take full control of his own destiny from start to finish.
At the age of 18, Berger came to Paris for the first time. When he was walking on the Champs-Élysées, the well-known French poet Jacques Prévert "falls from the sky" and suddenly appeared in front of the young man - Prévert accidentally fell from the window sill and was in a coma for several days. sky.
Gradually, Berger, a young man from other provinces who dropped out of school because of a slap in the face of a high school teacher, became a member of the well-known cultural circle in Paris, and joined famous artists such as Cocteau, Louis Aragon and Camus. The writer has been very secretive. In fact, Berger's subsequent contacts were all artists and writers, and he often claimed to be "someone who almost became an artist".
Berger's eight-year relationship with the talented painter Buffy (Bernard Buffet, 71, unable to paint because of Parkinson's disease, chose to suffocate himself in a black plastic bag): The couple make their home in a sunny out-of-state, Buffy Busy with painting every day, Berger plays the role of mentor and partner - he is responsible for household chores and dealing with art dealers. Berger recalled: "We have been inseparable for the past eight years. We never parted even when we were eating." When the weather is good, the two ride motorcycles through the mountains. They even ventured to visit the long-admired writer Giorno.
Whenever a painter's work is exhibited, Berger is responsible for dealing with art critics, painter's admirers, painting buyers, and selling his lover's paintings around the world. The painter's success brought illustrious friends and wealth. They were invited to visit Christian Dior's castle, rent an apartment in Paris' affluent 16th arrondissement and buy a cottage on the outskirts of Paris. Back in Paris, they blended into the clubs there and participated in the elegant parties that took place at night.
Berger's fantasy of aristocratic luxury life has come true in advance: in their villas, butlers, servants, cooks, drivers, gardeners and other service personnel are readily available. But the pampered life has also raised questions and hatred: some fans and critics think Buffy is too prolific, while Berger, who loves the luxury life, is turning a "genius painter" into a "businessman". Hateful rhetoric about the couple's sexuality and relationship also began to circulate.
The two young people who were in the limelight had to temporarily go to other provinces to avoid trouble. There, Berger purchased a seventeenth-century country house overlooking la montagne Sainte-Victoire. On the day to celebrate the housewarming, three hundred guests came to them, including Cocteau, Giorno and Roger Martin du Gard (Nobel Prize winner in 1937). Berger has never been so rich, so admired, so admired.
After befriending such talents as the well-known writer Giono and the poet and playwright Maurice Rostand, Berger met Dior's 20-year-old successor, the shy, introverted 20-year-old successor at Christian Dior's funeral in 1957. Yves Saint Laurent. Previously, Berger had no knowledge of fashion. To him, it's just an industry that's not worth mentioning. At this point, Berger and Buffy fall in love with each other: he falls in love with Saint Laurent, and Buffy, who is bisexual, falls in love with a woman named Annabel May Schwob de Lure.
With Saint Laurent, Berger once again played the role of the artist's agent. Seeing that he was about to be drafted into the army to fight in the Algerian war, Saint Laurent, who was already nervous and depressed, even seemed to have a tendency to fail. The Dior company plans to find someone to replace Saint Laurent at this time. However, just when the unconvinced Berger was ready to ask a lawyer to sue Dior, the always weak Saint Laurent suddenly proposed to stand on his own. Berger used all his connections to finally find an American investor. And the husband of a model they know is the boss of the well-known "Paris Match Illustrated". Once the funds and publicity are in place, on October 7, 1961, the Saint Laurent brand was officially born in the world.
Saint Laurent's first ready-to-wear show was a great success, and the young Saint Laurent became a fashion master on an equal footing with Dior: L'Oreal Group heir Liliane Bettencourt, Baroness Rothschild (Marie-Hélène de Rothschild) ) and other prominent women have become fans of the Saint Laurent brand, and can’t help but admire the color matching and tailoring of its ready-to-wear genius. Saint Laurent has created a new era of women's clothing that is more modern, elegant and free. From the outset, the job of pricing was left to the “broker” Berger: the price was the same as that of Dior ready-to-wear, to show that the former apprentice had attained the same status as the mentor.
France in the 1960s was in the "golden three decades" of soaring consumption. What Berger wants to do is to modernize, internationalize and diversify the brand's products. He launched a major fragrance called Y, and the success brought immediate cash flow to the business. Meanwhile, while engineer and aviator-turned-André Courrèges and Pierre Cardin were designing sci-fi heroine-inspired costumes, the feminine Saint Laurent featured abstract painters Mondrian and Polyakov. Inspired ready-to-wear is popular with women: he often draws sharp and rich design inspiration from art, and strives to make haute couture as perfect as a work of art.
In general, the style of Saint Laurent ready-to-wear is elegant and chic, perfect for Catherine Deneuve in director Luis Buñuel's Belle de jour. showcases this style. Many well-known women at that time chose Saint Laurent, such as Françoise Giroud and Jeanne Moreau. In 1987, the Saint Laurent Group has developed into a fashion giant with a market value of 2.5 billion francs and employing 2,600 employees.
As with his ex-partner Buffy, Berger and Saint Laurent complement each other well: Saint Laurent is prone to restlessness, vulnerability, and anxiety, while Berger is strong, determined, and irritable. But they both love painting, literature and theatre. They buy a villa in Morocco and relax in it freely. When Saint Laurent died of brain cancer in 2008, his ashes were placed in the villa's garden.
In this way, Berger has maintained a luxurious and elegant lifestyle. Saint Laurent summed up their relationship this way: "Without you, I probably wouldn't be who I am. And without me, I don't expect that, but I don't think you would be who you are. This great pair The eagle spreads its unparalleled wings and flies across the sea and across borders. And this eagle is us."
The commercially successful Berger has always been an art lover. From 1977 to 1981 he was in charge of the Theatre of Athens (théâtre de l'Athénée); from 1988 to 1993 he was in charge of the Paris Opera (l'Opéra de Paris) under the friendly supervision of President Mitterrand. In addition, he has also served as the chairman of the writer Mac Orlan and the director of the Cocteau Committee, responsible for managing the rights of use of the works of two famous people. In 2001 Berger was named a "Distinguished Funder of Arts and Culture" and sponsored the Louvre's painting acquisition programme, as well as the renovations of the National Gallery in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. However, Berger has also experienced a public crisis: during his tenure as head of the Paris Opera, he fired the prestigious conductor Daniel Barenboïm. The latter has always regarded Berger as a layman, rather than a true artist. And Berger also underestimated the prestige of the conductor, making himself branded as bossy and arrogant in public.
In addition, Berger is actively investing in the news media industry: he is not only the founder of Courrier international and the same-sex publication Têtu, but in 2010 and 2014 he became the most well-known French newspaper Shareholders of the media Le Monde and The Observer.
Berger is the producer of the recent hit Robin Campillo's 120 beats per minute about the gay community's fight against AIDS.
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