The beloved Moroccan house of the late French designer Yves Saint Laurent is up for auction later this year, sans price tag. Georgina Wilson-Powell looks inside the intriguing Villa Mabrouka and explains how its simple decor is tied to some of the world's greatest art. Perched atop a cliff edge staring out across the Strait of Gibraltar, five minutes out of downtown Tangier, sits Villa Mabrouka, otherwise affectionately known as the House of Luck. Built by an Englishman, located in Morocco and loved by a Frenchman born in Algeria, the villa's understated architecture and colonial feel are softened with a liberal wash of chintz furnishings, surrounded by a mix of rolling lawns and delicate pavilions.
It's because of this last owner that the villa, albeit stunning in its own right, is the focus of so much interest as Christie's Great Estates prepares to auction it in November. Yves Saint Laurent died on June 1, 2008, aged 71, of brain cancer. One of the original haute couture French designers who helped revive his country's standing in the fashion world, he was arguably one of the most significant designers of the 20th century. Saint Laurent became synonymous with elegance and style, using simple lines and feminising previously masculine shapes.
The sale of the House of Luck will be accompanied by a three-day sale in Paris of more than 1,200 pieces from his estate, including works by Picasso and Miro, Roman sculptures and art deco objects that filled Saint Laurent's Normandy château. Christie's describes this second collection as having "an understated charm" and expects the auction to bring in ?3 million to ?4 million (Dh16 million to Dh21 million).
The cliff-top hideaway has a simplicity that sets it apart from Saint Laurent's usual interior design style. His other properties showcase an eclectic mix across many periods and reveal his fascination with the Parisian aristocrat socialite, the Vicomtesse Marie-Laure de Noailles' aesthetic. A friend of surrealists such as Salvador Dali, her "salon" mixed every style of objets d'art, juxtaposing friends' postcards with historical heirlooms, resulting in a frenetic treasure trove. François-Marie Banier, a photographer and friend of Saint Laurent, said, "Yves did with couture exactly what Marie-Laure did with decor: breaking the rules by putting together things that have nothing to do with one another."
Saint Laurent bought the villa in 1998 with his long-time business partner Pierre Bergé, from Sheikha Fatima bint Fahad bin Salem Al Sabah of Kuwait. The simple decor was fashioned by the interior designer and close friend Jacques Grange, who also worked on the designer's château in Normandy. "It was like decorating a house for people out of a play by Tennessee Williams," says Grange. "We based it on the house of an eccentric Englishman who moved to Tangier in the 1950s."
The colours of the house were kept muted, pastel yellows and blues, restricted to one colour per room. They work as a background in several drawing rooms and the master bedroom to the incredible 180 degree views, gazing out to Andalusia, over imported lemon trees, a swimming pool carved into the rock and lush lawns, and fountains that were designed by the landscape gardener Madison Cox. Saint Laurent helped Cox design the villa's gardens, using the property as more of a private retreat than an entertaining venue, allowing him a slower pace of life than the frantic bustle of the Paris belle monde.
As much as Saint Laurent was a fashion designer, he and Bergé were formidable art collectors. Paintings that hung originally in Tangier are now with the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Hermitage in St Petersburg. However, these represent only the tip of an artistic iceberg, amassed over five decades and spanning a wide range of eras and styles. Art and sculpture became almost an addiction for Saint Laurent later in life, and he was especially influenced by the work of Matisse, Picasso, Mondrian and, later, Andy Warhol, all of which could be seen in the cut and colour of his designs. A 1911 Matisse called Les Coucous Tapis Bleu et Rose, which also influenced his colour scheme at Villa Mabrouka, was part of another auction in February this year and sold for a record amount - ?32 million (Dh168 million) - which went to different charities that Bergé had set up in Saint Laurent's name after he died.
This record amount wouldn't surprise anyone who knew the designer. Saint Laurent had always been a man of firsts. He was the first designer to make ready-to-wear collections a reality and sold them through his Rive Gauche store in Paris. He created Le Smoking, the first tuxedo trousersuit for women in 1966, and he was the first designer to send black and Asian models down the catwalk. These achievements were recognised by the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art in New York, which held the first retrospective exhibition of a fashion designer in 1983 in his honour.
Saint Laurent was born in 1936 to wealthy parents in Algeria but moved to Paris in 1957, drawn by the bright lights of its lively fashion and theatre scenes. With an aesthetic naturally similar to Christian Dior, he was hired to work for the House of Dior and after being mentored by the fashion house's namesake, Saint Laurent found himself stepping into Dior's shoes at 21, after his mentor died of a heart attack in 1958. His first collection was credited with bringing back the House of Dior from financial ruin. But further collections missed the mark and after a compulsory stint in the Algerian army, Saint Laurent was discharged because of mental health problems.
On his release he founded his own fashion house with Bergé. When Saint Laurent retired in 2002, Bergé then turned his attention to converting the Parisian workshop and office into a foundation to look after the heritage of YSL, complete with 5,000 items of clothing in perfect condition. By the time he died six years later, Saint Laurent presided over an enormous art collection, with items ranging from ancient Egyptian sculptures to 18th-century Chinese bronze pieces from the royal Old Summer House that was ravaged by the English in 1860. More than 700 pieces of his collection went under the hammer, along with the record-breaking Matisse, earlier this year.
Bergé has explained that he is selling the collection because "it has lost the greater part of its significance", but he will keep certain pieces for sentimental reasons, such as the Warhol portrait of the designer. Cox, the garden designer who was also a friend, has said that the two men's main bond was the pride and love of their art collection. Choosing paintings together was "one of the strongest dialogues between Pierre and Yves," he said. "The discussion, the chase, the passion."
Saint Laurent also championed artists he felt a kinship with, especially when they happened to complement his lifelong love of Morocco. As well as the House of Luck, he also owned (or part-owned, depending on whom you talk to) the Majorelle Gardens in Marrakech, a public garden space with a blue art deco villa that now houses a museum of Islamic art. The gardens were created by French artist Jacques Majorelle, whose use of vivid blue paint on walls, pillars and in mosaics throughout the space prompted the deep Mediterranean colour to become known as Majorelle blue. Saint Laurent bought the gardens after the painter's death in the early 1960s and referred to them as his "source of inspiration". His ashes were scattered there last year.
A recluse in the last years of his life, Saint Laurent's signature looks are as relevant today as they were 40 years ago. As Bergé said after he died, "Chanel gave women freedom, Yves Saint Laurent gave them power." Villa Mabrouka has no price tag. There is little need to explain why; it is a piece of history, unique in itself, made more intriguing thanks to its role in a life lived less ordinary. It isn't a huge retreat for a discerning buyer but in terms of heritage and pulling power, the House of Luck is like a blockbuster movie, with Madison Cox and Jacques Grange playing supporting roles to Saint Laurent's lead, for an audience interested in design of this calibre.
The second sale of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé's collection will be held in Paris from November 17-19.
