Saint Laurent has always had a penchant for aristocratic sales help. I bought it in 1969 at the Rive Gauche boutique on Bond Street, in London, which had been inaugurated with great fanfare that year by Princess Margaret and was managed very profitably by a former fashion journalist named Lady Rendlesham.
It was made of thick alpaca blanket wool, lined in black silk, and ingeniously constructed without darts so that, despite its weight, it had no bulk at the hips or waist. This first deluxe, not to say decent, piece of clothing that I ever owned was a sable-brown Cossack-style maxiskirt by Yves Saint Laurent that zipped up both sides like a sleeping bag.
Of all the garments I have loved and lost, there is one whose perfection gave me such happiness that I’ve spent decades hoping it will surface in some thrift shop, and when I’m in Paris I never fail to check at the Père Lachaise of couture, Didier Ludot’s grimly glamorous little resale boutique in the Palais Royal.
