Betty Catroux, Feminine singular

Betty was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1945. The only child of Carmen Saint, she arrived in Paris at the age of four and grew up in an affluent environment in the 1950s.

Through her mother’s friend Maggie van Zuylen, the mother of Marie-Hélène de Rothschild, she met Coco Chanel when she was 16 and ended up modeling for her for two years. She ultimately stopped because she found the job truly humiliating: “Chanel only took on girls who had personality. And they were all beauties: Paule Rizzo, Marie-Hélène Arnaud, they were ravishing girls. Men went crazy; they waited for us in the street outside the door on the Rue Cambon. That was a time when women were fascinating. Now, they’re all ravishing, but they all look the same.”

On December 26, 1967, she married the decorator François Catroux in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat. Betty has described him as “an immensely talented man with a heart of gold!”

That sense of freedom is perhaps also expressed in her unique passion for dance. Every day she spends two hours practicing, as she has done for many years.

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Betty Catroux first met Yves Saint Laurent at Chez Régine, a nightclub on the Boulevard Montparnasse. She recalls, “It was love at first sight for him, and he flirted with me… Since he was shy, he sent a young man from his table to talk to me. I sat down with Yves, and he gave me the usual compliments… I thought he was incredibly nice, and funny, too. It’s true that we resembled each other a bit. He asked me to model for him. I laughed at him, even though all the girls were dreaming of doing just that. He took my number and never let me go.”

They would end up becoming inseparable. Betty is his double, his twin and his constant companion. She accompanied Yves on all his travels, including on private trips and during his vacations in Marrakech. “For the House of Saint Laurent, we went everywhere: to Japan, China, America.” However, she never worked for him. Their relationship was priceless, “like a fantasy that lasted a lifetime.”

Yves wrote her letters that reveal his profound attachment to her. They nicknamed each other “Pulu”, a name of endearment derived from a comic strip he had created entitled “La Vilaine Lulu.”

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Yves Saint Laurent and Betty Catroux went out together every night. They were regulars at Parisian nightclubs and had only one goal: have as much fun as possible.

Also part of their intimate circle was Loulou de La Falaise, with whom they formed a trio. Unlike Betty, Loulou was more “womanly.” Radiant and fascinating, she saw the world through rose-colored glasses, while Betty and Yves were pessimists at heart. “To me, Loulou conjured up fantasy and Betty a bodily rigor,” said Yves, who saw aspects of his feminine ideal in each of them.

Betty liked Le Sept on the Rue Sainte-Anne, a nightclub that doubled as a restaurant. There they mixed with the likes of Francis Bacon, David Hockney, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Andy Warhol, a friend of Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé. Together the pair cultivated their “taste for all things louche” and all that the night had to offer. “All that excess and drugs were very important in our lives,” she recalls, “but we did it very badly, experienced it very badly. [...] That’s why we ended up in the hospital, often together, and in horrendous condition. It was a miracle we survived, with the help of people who loved us.  [...] Pierre Bergé and François, my husband, come to mind: They were always there for us. They supported, protected and helped us. Otherwise, we certainly wouldn’t be here anymore. They were devastated by what they saw, but they never gave up on us.”

By the time he met Betty Catroux in 1967, Yves Saint Laurent had already developed his own style, which drew on menswear in order to revolutionize women’s fashion. Throughout his career, the couturier continually reinterpreted the peacoat, the trench coat, the tuxedo, the safari jacket and the jumpsuit: leitmotifs which he would revisit in his collections when it suited him. In the past, these garments were only found in a utilitarian male wardrobe. Saint Laurent appropriated them and adapted them for the female body, retaining the cut, comfort, and practical aspects of these pieces, while adjusting them for a feminine silhouette in a way that combined simplicity and elegance.

Before meeting Yves Saint Laurent, Betty Catroux already cultivated a love of men’s clothing. She felt most in sync with herself when wearing them.

Androgynous, angular, and dressed like a tomboy in clothing that provided comfort and confidence, Betty has always exuded her own form of sensuality. When they met, Yves saw in her “the spirit of the times,” in which fashion was “a state of mind before being about clothes.” Wearing clothing was not enough: a woman had to convey an attitude at once mysterious and seductive.

Betty is the woman who best embodies the signature Saint Laurent style, wearing the couturier’s jumpsuits, pantsuits, and safari jackets better than anyone else. The perfect example is the safari jacket she wore for the inauguration of the SAINT LAURENT rive gauche boutique in London in 1969.

Betty ended up fully appropriating the Saint Laurent style. The designer encouraged women to dress by constructing an outfit around the “perfect kinds of clothes” that he designed, and to spontaneously mix and match items. Betty says, “I’m always mixing things, but only Saint Laurent! I like for the result to not look too thought out in advance.”

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In smoking rooms of the 1880s, men began wearing tuxedos: smoking jackets with broad silk satin lapels, from which the ashes from their cigars could slide without leaving any marks. In 1966, Yves Saint Laurent offered women his take on this traditional masculine garment – called un smoking in French – as an alternative to the evening gown, overturning long-established codes relating to power and fashion. Yves Saint Laurent’s “smoking” proved to be a true success, not only in the world of haute couture, but in its ready-to-wear version launched a few months later. 

“Le smoking” became a must for emancipated women who, like men, assumed the right to wear it, thus upending the codes and conventions surrounding seduction. Saint Laurent made “le smoking” a key element of a contemporary woman’s wardrobe. He reinterpreted it every season and made it a leitmotif throughout his career.

The tuxedo became the key item in Betty Catroux’s wardrobe. She made the garment her own, acknowledging its “perfect balance” between the feminine and the masculine look she so adores. Betty’s personal collection includes numerous tuxedos—jackets, pants, skirts, dresses, and even shorts, all echoing the variations Saint Laurent presented in each collection.

Betty Catroux, a true fashion icon, has been photographed by major artists, including Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, Steven Meisel, and Jeanloup Sieff. “I always say that I don’t have any talent other than a talent for attracting talent,” she asserts.

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Betty has often posed for magazines wearing haute couture and ready-to-wear. She has been called “[the one] who wears it to perfection” (Vogue USA) and “who embodies the style of Saint Laurent” (Vogue UK).

Yves Saint Laurent designed both haute couture and ready-to-wear. In 1999, the ready-to-wear label was sold to Kering, which now owns the brand.

Betty met Anthony Vaccarello, Artistic Director of Saint Laurent, at the inauguration of the musée YVES SAINT LAURENT marrakech in the fall of 2017.

In 2018, Betty agreed to participate in an advertising campaign for the Saint Laurent autumn-winter 2018 collection. She was photographed by David Sims wearing a leather jacket designed for both the men’s and women’s collections.

Betty continues to embody the “Saint Laurent spirit” and its androgynous style, which is not reduced to a specific gender. “I hate nostalgia,” asserts Betty. “I never think about the past. It’s the present that interests me. I like the present, in which I feel a thousand times better than fifty years ago. I used to feel uncomfortable with myself, but today I feel completely in tune with our era.”

Betty Catroux’s personal collection consists of 180 haute couture pieces, many of which were runway prototypes that were delivered to her a few days after a collection was shown. There are 138 additional pieces designed by Yves Saint Laurent for his SAINT LAURENT rive gauche ready-to-wear label as well as accessories, including shoes, bags and jewelry.

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In 2019, Betty Catroux decided to donate her wardrobe to the Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent, out of friendship for its president, Madison Cox: “Yves et Pierre gave me everything. My life is a true fairy tale! Today these garments return where they came from, in order for Yves' work to live on” she said. 

This donation, which is the largest the Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent has ever received, is particularly significant because these pieces embody both the signature style that Yves Saint Laurent continually upheld and his strong bond with Betty Catroux. It also gives us the opportunity to see the full wardrobe of a fashion icon.

In 2020, the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris will be devoting a special exhibition to Betty Catroux. The pieces displayed in the exhibition come from a major donation Betty Catroux has made to the Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent.

Madison Cox, President of the Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent, has given Anthony Vaccarello free rein in curating this exhibition, which will be mounted at the Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris. Anthony Vaccarello, Artistic Director of Saint Laurent, approaches Betty Catroux’s wardrobe from an aesthetic perspective by selecting the pieces that best reveal her unique personality and ongoing influence on the label’s signature style.