Yves St Laurent, indisputably one of the finest fashion designers and couturiers of the last century, is again the focus of another major movie picture that is as much about as his wild and wicked ways off the catwalk than the creations that he sent down it every season. Following fast on the heels of last years ‘Yves Saint Laurent’ this new movie from director and co-writer Bertrand Bonello hones in on the troubled designer’s life from 1967 to 1976 when he was at the peak of his career, which seems to also be the time when he played rather hard too.

Something of a party-loving playboy Saint Laurent is seen picking up models Betty Catroux and Loulou in nightclubs and persuading them to be both his muse and playmates when he loves to burn the candles at both ends.  At the same time even though he and Pierre Bergé are entwined as lovers and business partners it doesn’t stop Saint Laurent from starting a very intense drug-fuelled affair with model Jacques de Bauscher who was also Karl Lagerfeld’s boyfriend at the time. It is only the intervention of Bergé that brings this relationship to a sudden close, but then one of his major roles seems to be to continually pull Saint Laurent out of the deep holes he digs himself into.

In real life, Berge had done his very best to stop this movie from ever being made yet in fact he comes over as the considerate and rather sane savior of both Saint Laurent’s life and the business itself.  One of the most touching scenes is where he is seen defending the independence of the YSL name with the new American owners who do not speak a word of French.