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From the farewell speech of fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, translated and presented as the opening monologue of the recent biopic L’amour fou.
Based on what I know of Saint Laurent from only having watched this film, a comparison to Arthur Rimbaud would be apt, perhaps drawn out over a far longer stretch of life: instead of abandoning his craft at 21 and fleeing to north Africa to become a merchant, YSL simply bought a house there, kept cranking out his culture-shifting art for the next few decades, survived the alcohol and drugs that came along with the celebrity, and slowly amassed a treasure trove of art and sculpture that sold recently for close to $500M. And yet he struggled with depression and unhappiness for all but “two moments a year”, his entire life. The NY Times review of L’amour Fou has down the sense of nihilism you get from the film’s protagonists’ lives:
To be surrounded by the most concentrated beauty the world has to offer and yet be chronically depressed is to confront the sad reality that material bounty may bring fleeting pleasure but nothing resembling peace of mind. To realize that you may have the world while still feeling as if you have nothing is to experience a closer encounter with the void than most of us are likely to have.
Other recent fashion documentaries worth watching, even if you’re like me and not really well-versed (or especially interested) in fashion:
