To be surrounded by the most concentrated beauty the world has to offer and yet be chronically depressed is to confront the sad reality that material bounty may bring fleeting pleasure but nothing resembling peace of mind. To realize that you may have the world while still feeling as if you have nothing is to experience a closer encounter with the void than most of us are likely to have.
As his depression deepened [Yves] Saint Laurent was joyful only twice a year, on the days a new collection was shown, usually to wild acclaim, according to friends interviewed in the film. Within 24 hours that joy had evaporated. Saint Laurent was so attached to his favorite objects that to part with even one of them would leave “a black hole” in his life, recalls Pierre Bergé, his partner (in business and in life) for a half-century. But the pride of ownership went only so far.
—Stephen Holden in “The Passions and Demons of Yves Saint Laurent”, a review of the documentary just out