The Beautiful Fall: Fashion, Genius, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris [Paperback]

Alicia Drake (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 6, 2007

"Deliciously dramatic... The Beautiful Fall crackles with excitement."-New York Times Book Review

In the 1970s, Paris fashion exploded like a champagne bottle left out in the sun. Amid sequins and longing, celebrities and aspirants flocked to the heart of chic, and Paris became a hothouse of revelry, intrigue, and searing ambition. At the center of it all were fashion's most beloved luminaries - Yves Saint Laurent, the reclusive enfant terrible, and Karl Lagerfeld, the flamboyant freelancer with a talent for reinvention - and they divided Paris into two fabulous halves. Their enduring rivalry is chronicled in this dazzling exposé of an era: of social ambitions, shared obsessions, and the mesmerizing quest for beauty.


"Fascinating." -New York Times


"Addictive." -Philadelphia Inquirer


"It's like US Weekly, 1970s style." -Gotham


"A story constructed as exquisitely as a couture dress. . . . It moves stylishly forward, with frequent over-the-shoulder glances at some very dishy background." -Boston Globe

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. This smart book stitches together the lives, loves, personalities and obsessions of two iconic designers, Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld, into a work as finely detailed as any outfit they ever sent down a runway. Through interviews with dozens of the designers' friends and colleagues, fashion journalist Drake offers revealing inside anecdotes and perspectives from those who were there for the Paris "fashion revolution." Drake interprets the rarefied and decadent 1970s French fashion scene Saint Laurent and Lagerfeld helped create with insight and vigor, as well as germane commentary on the collections and the trends they set. A period when couture was faltering and ready-to-wear rising, Drake crafts clear yin and yang portraits of the introverted, passive and magnetic Saint Laurent, and the exhibitionistic Lagerfeld, known for wearing high heels, sporting monocles or wielding a fan. With a large entourage of colorful supporting characters-from fashion muses like Loulou de la Falaise to socialites like Talitha Getty-and exotic locales-from Paris to Marrakech to the Blenheim Palace and back-the story of the competing and capricious fashionistos becomes the account of one glittering party after the next, interrupted occasionally by fashion shows, and sprinkled with celebrities such as Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol. The two tastemakers' homosexuality is dealt with frankly and the storied roots of their aesthetic senses and public personas is nicely detailed. De rigeur for the fashion crowd and those interested in the pop or gay culture of the era.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* The relationship between hedonism and decay and the understanding of excess as creative consumption are themes central to this glittering exegesis. Drake conducted more than 100 interviews in her scrupulous chronicle of fashion's most illustrious rivalry. Yves Saint Laurent, the charmed genius of effortless success, and Karl Lagerfeld, the patrician workhorse, engaged in a decades-long competition for hyperbolic headlines and jet-set celebrity, pitting their cliques against each other in bitch-slap feuds of sartorial splendor. Theirs is a world of glorious, hideous self-involvement, where heroin is an accessory, violent political unrest is an evening's amusement, and a close friend's suicide is, foremost, a contemptible blemish on an orchestrated image. Drake's subjects made their livings and their names dedicating themselves to the pursuit of surface perfection, and her comprehensive examination of their barbed, parallel arcs is appropriately superficial. These titanic designers crafted their personas as carefully as they put together their luxurious collections, and we come to know them as reflections in the mirror houses they built. Although their individual aesthetics and personal recriminations are unique, they are united in the opulent glory of their narcissistic myopia. Ultimately, Drake makes a good case for the extraordinary nature of their individual achievements and the revolutionary effect of their competitive energy on the fashion industry. And yet we're left with a portrait defined more by the careful craft of its brushstrokes than by the substance of the sitters. Thomas Barthelmess
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Back Bay Books; Reprint edition (September 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316001856
• ISBN-13: 978-0316001854
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.3 x 8.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #35,594 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #23 in Books > Arts & Photography > Fashion > History
  • #39 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Arts & Literature > Artists, Architects & Photographers
  • #52 in Books > History > Europe > France

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Fascinating Portrait of Two Fashion Legends and the Forces that Shaped Them February 15, 2007

By Claire Calladine

Format:Hardcover

The Beautiful Fall is a fascinating view into the Paris fashion scene during the intensely creative and revolutionary period of the 60's and 70's (and beyond). The book concentrates on fashion as lived by the rival camps of Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld, but its scope is much broader. Throughout a narrative that reads as compellingly as fiction, the author analyzes the socio-cultural events that shaped the Paris fashion world. Drake astutely pays homage to the symbiotic realtionship fashion has always had with society. She also taps into the fashion world's neuroses in all their terrifying glory: Saint Laurent's and Lagerfeld's ongoing fear of being outdone by the other; YSL's battles with his own creative demons; the manic way in which Lagerfeld surrounds himself with an everchanging fashion coterie that fuels his own creativity.

Drake's writing style is fluid, with her prose as rich and elegant as the world she depicts. Turning the pages of the book, one can see, taste and feel the luxe accoutrements that are the lot of fashion royalty: the sumptuous residences, the sit-down dinners for a hundred, the plush privelige of a chauffered limousine. Yet Drake also opens a door to the down side of fashion--the wounded egos as entourage members are cut loose, the heinous drug hangovers after all night parties at Le Palace, or the letdown of a fashion season fallen flat, when an anticipated collection is panned or ignored.

Class, too, is an overriding theme. The weight of the aristocracy is evoked, with its crushing confines of hierarchy and tradition. Overwhelming, too, are the shackles of design superstardom as Saint Laurent cracks under the weight of his own legend, his genius solicited season after season by a voracious Ready-to-Wear industry churning out clothes for the masses. YSL's torturous decades of self doubt are unflinchingly rendered as he struggles not only against drug and alcohol demons, but also to compete against the fashion standard he himself has set in his prolific early years. For as the author points out, it is every designer's damning quest to not only further their own body of work, but to create something new.

The Lagerfeld saga is given equal billing. Karl's veritable style assault on the industry over decades--the creation of tens of thousands of designs for dozens of labels--culminating in his triumph at Chanel--is an unparalleled tour de force in the design world. As Drake describes it, one can't help but feel that no man has poured more of himself into fashion than Lagerfeld, bringing not only a manic drive but a Renaissance Man's arsenal of knowledge, culture, and plain old street savvy. With the advent of youth-driven social forces like Rock music, MTV, and the rise of the supermodels, fashion became in fashion, and no-one has milked it more or used it to better advantage than Lagerfeld. The fact that Lagerfeld is actually taking the book to court in France (citing invasion of privacy) is unfortunate. Drake's portrait of both men is unflinching but not unflattering; it is fascinating, and above all, human.

Given the multiple tales of excess chronicled within, some might try to pass off the book as exploitative journalism or a cheap kiss-and-tell narrative. The book is neither. The Beautiful Fall is an astutely written, brilliant portrait of a history-making period in fashion that will forever stand as testimony to those tumultuous times. It is a must-read for anyone professing a serious interest in fashion.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars a BEAUTIFUL book October 26, 2006

By Caroline Weber

Format:Hardcover

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Like Alicia Drake, I write on fashion, but the comparisons end there, as Drake, who is superlatively gifted author, truly exists in a league all her own. Her treatment of this gripping topic--fashion-world excesses and catfights in 1970s Paris--is nothing short of excellent: astonishingly well researched, fascinatingly detailed, and wonderfully readable. THE BEAUTIFUL FALL is a must-have for anyone who cares about clothing, or Paris, or just plain terrific writing.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Must-read for anyone even remotely interested in fashion April 7, 2007

By Glenn Belverio

Format:Hardcover

I have been a fashion writer for about 10 years and this is absolutely one of the best fashion biographies I've read since perhaps DV by Mrs. Vreeland. The Beautiful Fall is beautifully written--a richly detailed account of Paris in the 50's through 80's packed with fashion and Parisian history, insight, and delicious gossip and scandal. You'll feel like you're there at the party and front row at shows that took place long before the televised mania over fashion began in America in the early '90s. Fabulous photos, as well.