L’Amour Fou

In 1958, the young French-Algerian couturier Yves Saint Laurent met and fell in love with the industrialist and patron Pierre Bergé, forging a relationship that would endure fifty years of extraordinary success, emotional turbulence and lingering devotion.

In 2008, following the death of Saint Laurent, Bergé decided to auction off the art collection that was the result of their decades-spanning union, spread across three lavish homes, inside of which both men exercised a mutual passion for beauty — in objects, places, people, and, above all, through their personal and professional union.

From art deco vases and African sculptures to singular pieces by Brancusi, Modigliani, Picasso, Matisse and Braque, the collection that symbolized this couple’s ceaseless devotion to beauty is at once catalogued, crated up and auctioned off by Christie’s, while Bergé reflects and ruminates upon the collection that came together slowly, almost by chance — and the romance that was love at first sight from the moment the duo met at Christian Dior’s funeral in 1957.

How does one walk away from so much beauty cultivated over time? Is such a thing possible? Do we shape the things that surround us, or do those things shape us?

With a Proustian flair for memory and sensation that dovetails remarkably with Saint Laurent’s lifelong romantic sensibility, L’AMOUR FOU documents Bergé’s personal coming to terms with the death of his lifelong partner through the objects they shared in life.

"A true must-see if you adore fashion, interior design, the Sixties and Seventies, travel, and an exploration of depressed genius with guest appearances by Andy Warhol and Mick Jagger." (Brandon Judell, Culture Catch)