...that the late, fashion great Yves St. Laurent's ex-kwi-zit doo-plex in Paris' 7th arrondissement has quietly arrived on the market with an asking price in excess of €20,000,000. That's 29,594,000 Americano at today's rates, according to Your Mama's currency converting contraption.
Okay. We confess. Your Mama didn't actually "hear" this real estate tidbit. Like about 49 million other people who like to look at stick thin models wearing outrageously expensive clothes, we read about it in fashion's bible Women's Wear Daily. Monsieur St. Laurent's lavish apartment and its contents were widely photographed and much discussed in early 2009 when Monsieur St. Laurent's de facto widow Pierre Bergé conscripted Christies to auction much of the dress designer's dazzling art and furniture collections. Laurent and Bergé's impressive and extensive collection(s) included stellar works by big names like Brancusi, Picasso, Cézanne, Léger and Matisse, Mondrian and Munch. The French fashionista also had a taste for Egyptian sarcophagi, 15th century tapestry, all manner of baubles and bibelots, and Qing dynasty bits and pieces. His varied but finely tuned tastes even extended to a flock of lifelike sheep in the library produced by François-Xavier Lalanne. Monsieur St. Laurent's furniture was no less remarkable than his art with many pieces designed by soo-blime designers like Eileen Gray, Gustave Miklos, Claude Lalanne and Jacques Ruhlmann. The collection was sold for €373,000,000, or $551,928,000 at today's rates.
Anyhoo, according to WWD, Monsieur Laurent's legendary Rue de Babylone doo-plex apartment, which was acquired by the bespectacled garment guru in 1969, measures approximately 5,400 square feet at opens on the garden level to a back yard with a view of a neighbor's private tennis court. A private tennis court right in the center of the City of Light. Who knew? The deeply personal and decoratively exuberant apartment hides behind a rather stern façade and previous reports about the doo-plex reveal there are at least two bedrooms–a larger one on the main floor for Monsieur St. Laurent and a smaller one at garden level for Mister Bergé, who moved to his own apartment on the Rue Bonaparte in the 1990s. Other rooms of the dignified digs include a library, music room, and a grand salon with exquisite smooth oak paneling from in the late 1920s.
It was reported in May of 2009 that French president Nicolas Sarkozy and his beautiful bride Carla Bruni had a look-see at the apartment and notable nearby neighbors include large lipped British rock star Mick Jagger.
According to the peeps at WWD, the apartment is said to be represented with Emile Garcin, a fancy-pants real estate brokerage who deals primarily with some of Paris' most exquisite properties as well as high priced pads in other parts of France.
