Coping With Death: Pierre Bergé and a Life in Objects

Yves Saint Laurent (left) with Bergé in their apartment.
(Credit: luxurystylemagazine.com)

Friday, June 6th 2008 – the streets of Paris were brimming with citizens, all gathered to pay their respects at the funeral of couturier Yves Saint Laurent (YSL). Along with Chanel, YSL is known as one of the great bookends of French design, praised by the most bourgeoisie of critics and the prêt a porter public.

Pierre Bergé, YSL’s partner in both life and business stood at the helm of the funeral procession – an embodiment of composure in the face of grief. Although YSL died from a terminal illness, Bergé admitted to the press that it was his partner’s destructive personality that made his life cancerous. And after the death of his beloved Yves, coping with death became a matter of coping with the objects that defined their life together. Yves and Pierre were renowned for their museum-worthy collection of art and antiquities, which they began to cultivate in the 1960s. So it was a shock when Bergé announced his plans to auction away every thing — all of the Picassos, the Goyas and Gericaults — sans restraint.

Parisian public at the funeral.
(Credit: nymag.com)

“The second I knew that Yves was [terminally] ill, I knew I would sell everything…[and] I think that the day after the sale, I will feel liberated.”

–Pierre Bergé

The need to eradicate any tangible traces of a relationship after a death is not uncommon. In many cases, letting go of objects can be a cathartic part of the grieving process. For most of us, this means sorting through mundane knick-knacks and a few family heirlooms. For Pierre Bergé, it meant a three-day auction in Paris’s Grand palais. The 2010 documentary, L’amour fou (Crazy Love) chronicles Bergé’s feelings surrounding the event, beginning with his decision to sell and ending with an image of their empty Paris apartment. “It was very violent,” said Bergé of the Christie’s auction, which weighed in at $483.8 million, “It was an exorcism.”

Credit: culture-mode.blogspot.fr

Yves and Pierre met in 1958 at the funeral of Christian Dior and were immediately inseparable. Yet their relationship suffered from the spiraling combination fame and drugs (cue Studio 54) had with Yves’ depression. Throughout the years, they would be one of the most tumultous couples in the media. “Everything I didn’t have, he had,” YSL said of Bergé, “His strength meant I could rest on him when I was out of breath.”

They were a pair inspired by the material – which is not to say they were materialistic. As a designer, YSL understood that we are what we love and internalize — but also what we project, if not more so. And each of his défilés demonstrated that fashion can be one of the most effective vehicles for such expression.

For YSL to sell even one of his objects would have left “a black hole” in his life, says Bergé. The rooms of their Paris apartment were dripping in antiques from around the world: Qing dynasty bronzes and 18th century French busts; a 1928 leopard-skin bench by Gustave Miklos and a casual batch of Monets hanging in the bathroom. But after his partner’s death, the objects’ role in his life changed. The antiques didn’t become meaningless – but they felt misplaced. And Bergé felt like a man among ghosts.

The auction of the century at the Grand Palais.
(Credit: Time)

“Everyone dreams of attending their own funeral,” he said, “[and] I am going to attend the funeral of my collection.” He was keen to add that it wasn’t a sad experience, and “hopes that everything [they] loved so passionately will find a home with other collectors. That is the way with works of art.”

But did Bergé really have no regrets in selling, well, everything? What did he miss? When asked, Bergé’s response incapsulates the contradictory emotions of a man coping with death: “All and none. All and none.”

Related Articles:

• Watch the trailer for L’Amour fou here.
• SevenPonds’s article on Andy Warhol’s “Time Capsules.”
• SevenPonds’s article on overcoming Grief with creativity,”A Graphic Designer’s Brother Dies in a Plane Crash.”