year after his death from brain
cancer in 2008, Yves Saint Laurent
topped the Forbes list of dead
celebrity earnings. Through the
sale of his estate, Saint Laurent
posthumously 'earned' US$350m, overtaking
fellow 'delebs' l\1ichael J ackson, Elvi s
Presley and Albert Einstein. Never has being
dead been so lucrative. The Forbes list
highlights the increasing commercialisation
of stars' estates; in Saint Laurent's case, a
three-day Christie's auction of 733 art works
belonging to him and his companion and
business partner, Pierre Berge, momentarily
propelled him to the top of the deleb
earnings league. Dubbed the 'art sale of the
century', it featured paintings by Matisse,
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The museum's hermetic
volume presents an
impeccably delineated
blank face to the street
(opening spread, left).
Between walls
of pink terrazzo and
red terracotta bricks,
a lustrous gold canopy
signifies entry (left).
In the circular entrance
courtyard is a shrine to
the YSL logo (right).
Originally designed by
Cassandre in 1961 , the
YSL logo was configured
by models in Saint
Laurent finery on the
Stade de France pitch
before the final of the
1998 World Cup in Paris
Duchamp, Brancusi, 1\ilondrian and
de Chirico, and netted €375m, a record for a
single-owner collection. Two 1 8th-century
car ved rat and rabbit heads that originally
adorned the zodiacal fountain of Emperor
Qianlong's Summer Palace sold for €15.74m
each. In death, as in life, Yves was still
making headlines.
Ten years earlier, at the 1998 \Vorld Cup
Final in Paris, the pre-match entertainment
featured a parade of 300 models dressed in
Saint Laurent creations from different eras.
Car la Bruni, t he future presidential consort,
wore a white dress shaped like a pair of
canoodling doves. At t he show's climax, the
ranks of immaculately coutured and coiffed
models were choreographed, Busby Berkeley