Loulou & Yves, Author Talk and Book Signing with Christopher Petkanas

At The French Library Get Directions

Push back the curtains of the catwalk and look behind the scenes of the Maison Yves Saint Laurent with Christopher Petkanas and his most recent publication. Petkanas will share his insight into fashion muse Loulou de la Falaise and her impact on one of the world’s most iconic fashion brands.

“Her presence at my side is a dream, I trust her reactions. Sometimes they are violent but always positive... I bounce ideas off her and they come back clearer and things begin to happen.” -Yves Saint Laurent

This event is open to the public and follows an exclusive first event at the Museum of Fine Arts, open only to its Fashion Council. The author-talk will be followed by a book signing and a cocktail reception with refreshments.

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Non-member

$10

About Christopher Petkanas

Marjorie R. Williams author photo_credit Kent Lineback

While living in Paris, Christopher Petkanas covered Loulou de La Falaise and the House of Saint Laurent from 1982 to 1988, picking up with Loulou again more than two decades later, in 2010, the year before she died. He has written for The New York Times, Vogue, and Architectural Digest, and his previous books are At Home in France: Eating and Entertaining with the French, and Parish-Hadley: Sixty Years of American Design (with Sister Parish and Albert Hadley). He now resides in New York City. (Amazon)

About Loulou and Yves, the Untold Story

In Loulou and Yves, on the theory that everyone loves a cocktail party, Christopher Petkanas traces Loulou de La Falaise’s life chronologically through the memories of more than two hundred voices: husbands, lovers, extended family, friends, enemies, slightly less bitter detractors, colleagues, groupies, Yves pundits, hangers-on, and Loulou herself. (MFA)

Readers mingle at the party as invited guests, listening in on Andy Warhol and Karl Lagerfeld and collecting clues from Mick Jagger and Tom Ford as the narrative unfolds. In a fluent round of sparkling conversation, author Christopher Petkanas brings them all together for a party that swirls around one of the most scintillating women the fashion world has ever known. (Amazon)

About Loulou de la Falaise

Loulou de La Falaise (1947-2011) was one of the most important women in the history of twentieth-century fashion, a brilliant iconoclast descending in a direct line from Coco Chanel and Elsa Schiaparelli. In 1968, Loulou’s Bohemian spirit, coupled with her fearless sense of style, caught the attention of Yves Saint Laurent (1936-2008)―the most influential designer of his time. For thirty years, until 2002 when Yves Saint Laurent retired, Loulou de La Falaise was Saint Laurent’s right hand, muse, chief confidante, and the Merlin behind all those extravagant accessories―clanking bronze cuffs, towering fur toques, necklaces with stones the size of boulders―that became a crucial element of the YSL “look.” (MFA)

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