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A review by noticiasdelimperio
The Beautiful Fall: Lagerfeld, Saint Laurent, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris by Alicia Drake
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
4.75
neither a hagiography nor an exposé on ysl and karl lagerfeld but a portrait of a time, a place and a social environment that created these two people and was profoundly transformed by them. it is medium paced and a bit of a brick, and at some point i had to space my reading of it because it's a bit dense, but it was an absolute pleasure to read throughout. alicia drake has a way of describing everything from the people and their surroundings to the actual literal fashion that gets across not only how it looked but how it felt and what it meant that blows the idea of fashion and fashion writing as something shallow entirely out of the water. there's a real poetry and weight to both the overarching narrative and the smaller arcs of people like pierre bergé, loulou de la falaise and of course jacques de bascher that leaves you with a sense of wonder and awe at the moment they lived in and even a sympathy for people who at the end of the day lived very privileged, rarefied lives.
it also has unbelievable quotes from everybody in karl and yves' milieu but karl and yves themselves, and i think the indirect portrayal of these two figures ends up being much more interesting and in a way multifaceted than if they had spoken on it themselves, particularly because of their awareness of the myths that their lives and personas had become. i think nowadays we are living in a world that these two people created, and the beautiful fall impresses upon you not only how human and fallible they both were, but how their environment and success enabled both the best and worst aspects of their personalities to an unbelievable degree and gave them a platform from which to shape the culture in their image. the structure of a dual biography confronts their two personalities but also their approaches to art, fashion, success and human relationships and eventually their popular image and legacy on culture.
"the end had been there among them for years, but fashion's ability to staunch reality, its endless dance across the mirrored surface of the idea, meant that it could hold off the fall and sustain the illusion for one more fashion season, one more fabulous party, one more magazine shoot, always one more fashion moment".
it also has unbelievable quotes from everybody in karl and yves' milieu but karl and yves themselves, and i think the indirect portrayal of these two figures ends up being much more interesting and in a way multifaceted than if they had spoken on it themselves, particularly because of their awareness of the myths that their lives and personas had become. i think nowadays we are living in a world that these two people created, and the beautiful fall impresses upon you not only how human and fallible they both were, but how their environment and success enabled both the best and worst aspects of their personalities to an unbelievable degree and gave them a platform from which to shape the culture in their image. the structure of a dual biography confronts their two personalities but also their approaches to art, fashion, success and human relationships and eventually their popular image and legacy on culture.
"the end had been there among them for years, but fashion's ability to staunch reality, its endless dance across the mirrored surface of the idea, meant that it could hold off the fall and sustain the illusion for one more fashion season, one more fabulous party, one more magazine shoot, always one more fashion moment".