Earlier this week, in a landmark auction at Christie’s Auction House in Paris that coincided with the end of couture week, the great actor/fashion icon Catherine Deneuve sold 130 of her one-of-a-kind Rive Gauche gowns created for her by fashion icon Yves Saint Laurent. The collection included a gold lurex-velvet column dress the Deneuve wore to the 1966 Academy Awards, plus a beaded mini-dress worn for a meeting with Alfred Hitchcock in 1969. The auction raised over $1 million over the course of a five hours of fiercely contested bidding. Another 170 items from her collection will remain on sale at Christie’s online through January 30.
Deneuve first met Saint Laurent when she commissioned the designer to dress her for a meeting with Queen Elizabeth II in 1965. Deneuve was just 22-years-old at the time. It was the start of a beautiful friendship. The collaborated on her wardrobe for Luis Buñuel‘s film Belle du Jour, (1967), which included an iconic vinyl trench coat.
“Belle du Jour” via YouTube
In Belle de Jour she plays Séverine, an upper-middle-class wife who spends her afternoons as a prostitute in a luxurious Parisian brothel. Belle de Jour is something very rare in a film of the era; Buñuel dealt with female erotic fantasies in a clear way, something no one else had attempted before. But it was done in the most discreet possible way, nothing explicit is revealed in the movie, as Buñuel wanted to see Séverine always covered with clothes.
Saint Laurent did an excellent job. He worked well with the director, understanding that garments must be sewn on the character, figure-hugging, tailored, minimalist and cut just above the knee, including an element of sexual display, but a controlled one. Buñuel knew exactly what he wanted in the costumes and what to express through them. In their sophistication, his clothes brought a surrealist aspect to the film, a typical Buñuel element.
Deneuve:
I am letting go of my house in Normandy where I kept this collection, not without sadness. These are creations by such a talented man, who only designed to make women more beautiful.
Deneuve and Saint Laurent, 1993, photograph by Jean-Luce Huré, Christie’s, via Sky News, YouTube
Source: Economic Times
