In fashion, sometimes logos get to the point before the clothes. His iconoclastic designs often shocked with their ingenuity before becoming the standard of high chic.
I felt responsibility in terms of speaking of him, and especially towards the public, in getting to have him known better. His story is not actually very well known.
But at the same time, since he is an icon, I had to take a certain amount of distance, in terms of the reality of the story and not weighing down the story too much. It was the same thing with the actors. We worked intensely and uphill. I wanted to be able to use the originals. I wanted it to be as precise as possible, and I needed him for that. For the film and all of the characters, of course, they needed their own creations.
It was double work, really. But it was amazing, fantastic. Did they work closely together? Not too much. And in terms of the icon of Yves Saint Laurent, the actor is to feel free and to do a movie. But of course I managed to organize a lot of meetings with different people who worked with Yves Saint Laurent, like writers and his personal assistant. She was very important, very close to him personally and professionally.
There were of course other people, like Betty Catroux, and workers, like the seamstresses and the couturiers. What about him did you learn about most through making this film? It was an opportunity for me to talk about creation and where it comes from. It was very interesting to talk about that, because not a lot of people really know about it. You have to create to feel better, and you need to feel better, too, to create. I believe in it, especially when you talk about a genius. Yves Saint Laurent, even Jimi Hendrix.
