Sunday, June 01, 2008

Yves St Laurent: Fashion Icon, Gay Victim

I know that straight people like to think that all gay men are haute couture geniuses...or fancy dress faggots. Or work in the fashion industry. So I'm sorry to disappointment them.

I don't know fashion from a hole in the wall. It bores me to tears. It's so hard to whip up a nifty combination from jeans, t-shirts, hoodies and leather jackets.

And the only reason that there are so many gay men in the fashion industry is because it's one of the few businesses that welcomes them.

But I couldn't help note the death of Yves St Laurent.











And this little detail tucked away at the bottom of the story...

Taunted as a schoolboy because of his homosexuality, Yves St Laurent suffered mental and physical ill health for much of his life and he appeared in public only rarely.

And I really liked what he had to say in this story.

About the booze and the drugs and all the other bad stuff...

"Every man needs aesthetic phantoms in order to exist," he said. "I have known fear and the terrors of solitude. I have known those fair-weather friends we call tranquillisers and drugs. I have known the prison of depression and the confinement of hospital. But one day, I was able to come through all of that, dazzled yet sober."

So I'm going to have to tip my grubby baseball cap to this real haute couture gay genius.

I guess he really showed the bullies.

Didn't he?

1 comment:

  1. i am glad he was able to get out of his struggle a stronger man.

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