Dan's review
The Beautiful Fall: Lagerfeld, Saint Laurent, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris by Alicia Drake
alicia drake has written the non-fiction version of the amazing adventures of kavalier and clay. this book, a bildingsroman in the truest sense, does a wonderful job of painting the human side of yves saint laurent, karl lagerfeld and their respective coderies, which serves to highlight their dizzing rise to superstardom. by turns hilarious and tragic, drake offers an impressive litany of sources to flesh out this poignant tale. we see saint laurent at the glittery heights of his creativity, a precipice inevitably lost to the crushing depths of his depression. despite the designers attempt to scuttle the books reputation, drake delivers a nuanced portrait of lagerfeld, suggesting in the process that his famous eccentricities may be a mask concealing a traumatic childhood. it is a study of opposites: saint laurent, the tortured wunderkind hidden away in his protective bubble, and lagerfeld, the tireless laborer absrobing and reappropriating everything around him. but for all its ...more
