Loulou & Yves

Loulou de la Falaise was one of the most important women in the history of twentieth century fashion. Born in England into a family of aesthetes with a father who was a count and a mother, Maxine, who was a tornado of artistic flamboyance, Loulou’s Bohemian spirit coupled with her unerring sense of style brought her to the attention of Yves Saint Laurent. She became his muse, and the rest is history. Working alongside him, pushing and prodding the troubled genius to the next collection, and the next, and the next, she was indispensable to him in Paris, in Tangier, in New York—in short wherever he went. In Loulou & Yves, Christopher Petkanas assembles almost every important figure in twentieth century fashion and art to tell her story: Andre Leon Talley, Hamish Bowles, Grace Coddington, Ines de la Fressange, Betty Catroux, Suzy Menkes, Ricardo Bofill, Robert Mapplethorpe, John Richardson, Yves St. Laurent, and Loulou herself. Just as George Plimpton evoked Edie Sedgewick in his brilliant oral biography Edie, Petkanas brings all of these people together for a cocktail party that swirls around one of the most brilliant women the fashion world has ever known. No one interested in fashion, style, or the high-flying gossip of the twentieth century will want to miss this endless feast called Loulou & Yves.