The Designer at Home

Yves Saint Laurent radiates timidity and a fragile, overstrained sensibility. Last Tuesday when he found his way to the Costume Institute in the bowels of the Metropolitan Museum, he was stopped by a security guard and meekly signed in to see his own show. As the frantic week of preparation went on, he was coaxed one way by Diana Vreeland, the other by his hectoring partner, Pierre Berge. Saint Laurent did his best, moving as if in a daze.

He is, he says, "honored" by this retrospective, which is his symbolic coronation as the monarch of fashion, but it comes at a bad time. Saint Laurent is trying to recover from a kind of breakdown. He sees a therapist in Paris five times a week and takes a regimen of "calmant" pills, which he unwisely chases with alcohol on occasion. He is now so detached that he regards solitude as "a friend." The burden of putting on four extravaganzas a year--two for haute couture, two for Rive Gauche--for a quarter of a century would seem to justify a sabbatical, but Saint Laurent does not take that option. Karl Lagerfeld blames the designer's inner circle for his misery: "I think back 20 years and remember his charm, his laugh. That entourage has managed to convince him that he's an old man now."

Saint Laurent is deeply devoted to his professional "family," which includes Berge, his partner in private as well as business life; Loulou Klossowski, an associate who is particularly gifted at choosing accessories; and a few longtime assistants. Saint Laurent blames his depression on ambition and precocious success. Before leaving for New York City, he spoke with TIME Correspondent William Blaylock in his Left Bank mansion. "I never had an adolescence," he said. "I became famous right away, and being shy, I found it difficult to get involved with others. Suffering is a necessary part of the creative process. You transform things when you suffer. Now my solitude has become so dominating, so much a part of me, that I'm incapable of loving or being loved."

It is a sad confession for a rich, well-beloved man in the prime of life. But if work is his undoing, it is also his consuming interest. He prefers couture because the fine fabrics make him feel "like a wood sculptor who gets to work with the finest ebony." It is also satisfying that his seamstresses complete every alteration, every sleeve and collar by the next day. "That's not the case with Rive Gauche at all," he laments. "I have to work with factories. I give them a sketch and have to wait twelve to 15 days before I see the result. It's total anguish." One of the pressure points of Saint Laurent's calendar is assembling the Rive Gauche costumes just before a show. With Klossowski at his side, he looks at the models. If the girl interests him, he adds the pendants and handkerchiefs to the costume swiftly, murmuring "Superbe"or "Sublime"to himself. If the model leaves him cold, he broods and she is dismissed.

Saint Laurent likes to recall his heritage fondly, the era when "Balenciaga, Dior or Chanel could set a standard that would be followed," but acknowledges that "I have always been able to exert a bit of influence." That is stating it mildly, and Saint Laurent knows it. Gazing at the grove of inner-city chestnut trees outside his windows, he muses on Maria Callas, whose foreshortened career haunts him. "I would go to hear her every evening, particularly her last performances," he remembers. "The hall was waiting for her to make a false note, divided between those who wanted her to sing beautifully and the others who wanted her to hit the false note." The analogy to his own lofty status does not require elaboration.

There are some unfulfilled ambitions. He would like to dress Ella Fitzgerald; he has all her records and loves them. He likes the thought of doing more work in the theater (he designed the costumes for Savannah Bay by Marguerite Duras, which opened in October), but lacks the energy. Time to take that breather? Not a bit of it. Instead, Saint Laurent is expanding; a new collection of sportswear is coming up. "It won't tire me out completely because there's no reason to change every year," he notes. "Just the colors here and there." Vreeland has faith in her idol. "He believes!" she exclaims. "All creations demand greenery of spirit." Anyone who cares about clothes hopes that, as usual, Vreeland has the last word. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.