“Saint Laurent’s Paris apartment on the Left Bank was originally designed by Bérard’s friend and sometime collaborator—the icon of Art Déco design—Jean-Michel Frank. Frank and Bérard’s interiors were madly dapper and stylish yet at the same time modern classics. The pair were celebrated not only in France but also in America, where they designed one of New York’s greatest Déco interiors: the Nelson Rockefeller apartment on Fifth Avenue. Yves Saint Laurent’s apartment was also originally designed for an American, which may in part account for its international modernist feel that makes no reference to time or place. It was an ideal background for Saint Laurent’s unabashedly eclectic treasure trove of extraordinary objects new and old, gathered from seemingly every culture with a legitimate claim to high style.”
– from Architectural Digest, September/October 1976 and September 1988
Yves Saint Laurent (inset, in the garden of his Left Bank duplex in Paris in 1976) filled his living room with favorite objects from his Art Déco collection, including two vases and an enamel panel by Jean Dunand. A set of Pierre Chareau armchairs is near a taboret by Pierre Legrain, center. A Jean de Bologne bronze is on the low table.
Jean-Louis Forain, Max Ernst and Christian Bérard works hang among theatrical sketches and memorabilia on the study walls. “Though I never stop working,” the designer has said, “I’m still happiest here, in the midst of these.” An Assyrian fragment is behind a Jeanne Laurent chair.
The library opens onto a garden. Whimsical bar and sheep chairs by Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne are clustered at right. Over the Le Corbusier console are Léger and Picasso works and a drawing by Modigliani, which was willed to the designer by Jean Cocteau.
The red hues of the music room evoke the designer’s native Algeria. “Color is a reflection of the soul,” he once noted. Lacquered fish are behind a Jacques-Emile Ruhlmann low table and piano displaying Dunand vases. The lamp is by Armand Albert Rateau.
Jacques Grange found the 18th-century mirror in the dining room. A Louis XV chandelier lights the space, which includes Gobelins tapestry panels. On the marble-topped Ruhlmann table is a silver-gilt ewer and basin that once belonged to an archduke of Austria.
“I like the airy presence of the crystal sconces in my bedroom. Nearly everything comes from the 1930s, and yet the atmosphere remains timeless,” Saint Laurent has said. The costume sketches are by Bérard.
Saint Laurent in 1988 with his bulldog Moujik.
A 19th-century black-and-white-marble bust overlooks the garden. “I like my garden to be peopled with statues,” the designer has said. “I like it to be mysterious—like the garden in Cocteau’s La Belle et la Bête.” The marble bird chair is by François-Xavier Lalanne.
After Saint Laurent’s death, his and Bergé’s interiors were sold, auctioned at Christie’s in 2009 for an astounding $484 million—the Gray chair alone brought just over $28 million. Despite, or perhaps because of, that dispersal the legend of the apartment will surely continue to grow. As Saint Laurent’s favorite writer, Marcel Proust, once observed, “The only paradise is paradise lost.”
Photography by Pascal Hinous, Marianne Haas ; source architecturaldigest.com
the CITIZENS of FASHION 
Reblogged this on Art History Ramblings and commented:
Check out Yves Saint Laurent’s art collection.
I want to live in his apartment xx
Anastassia http://creativerussia.wordpress.com/
He will always be my favorite designer. Thanks for a chance to see inside. Love it.
Thanks for your post! He had good taste in every sense!
Keep all the great work going by posting extra informative posts. Thank you. Time properly spent on this post.
Thanks for creating great post regarding the topic. I’m a fan of your site. Keep up the good job.
scvamoeqhn
Great post. I am just starting my blog as well. Do you find it hard to have something to say, because I dont feel like natural writer and it seems to come natural for you
fufJSN Tramado
Hi Site owner. My partner and i seriously like this post as well as the internet site all in all! Your piece of writing is actually quite plainly written and effortlessly understandable. Your current Blog design is wonderful as well! Would definitely be fantastic to learn exactly where I are able obtain it. If possible continue to keep up the good work. We require even more this sort of site owners just like you on the net and much fewer spammers. Great mate!
Nasty post man , keep on writing more please
I wonder if youd be wiling to tell me where you got this them from?
I like your blog.
Hey have you seen Inception already?It is AMAZING! Check out Avatar PDF ebooks download here!
Thanks for posting about this. There?s scores of important tech data on the internet. A person?ve got a lot of which data right here on your website. I?m amazed ? I attempt to keep a few weblogs pretty on-going, but it?utes a struggle occasionally. You?ng carried out a great job with this particular 1. How do you get it done?
zngmsbxkbb
bjzfGs Xanax
I hope its not the last article about this topic , it absolutely was just a wonderful understand and hopefully we will all study far more about this !! Bookmarked dude!
Wow!, this was a top quality post. In theory I’d like to publish like this too – taking time and real effort to make a nice article but what can I say I keep putting it off and never seem to get something finished