Friday night, the Denver Art Museum held a black tie opening gala for their major fashion exhibition coup, Yves Saint Laurent: The Retrospective. I heard more than one Denverian (?) refer to this as Denver’s biggest event since the Democratic National Convention. Indeed, hundreds of Denver’s elite showed up as well as the mayor, a few French ambassadors, and several chic French people and members of the Fondation Pierre Bergé Yves Saint Laurent, including its founder, co-founder of the Yves Saint Laurent house and Saint Laurent’s longtime partner, Pierre Bergé.

It was clear that all of them were genuinely happy to be there and could not have been more pleased with the exhibit and its surprising new home. Berge, who, from a distance and by some accounts, seems like he could be a difficult man to please, said in a brief speech at the event, “Yves Saint Laurent would be very proud to be here.”

Later that evening, we tracked him down inside the exhibit (the museum set aside a private seating area for him which he never used), where he told us he didn’t have a favorite part of the exhibit. “I like everything,” he said. “Of course for me what is important is the tuxedo [wall] because it is the first one and also the Mondrian dress because it is an iconic dress.” He had equally nice and enthusiastic things to say about Yves Saint Laurent’s brand new creative director, Hedi Slimane:

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