
Yawn. It’s another week and yet another biopic has landed in our laps as though we weren’t over saturated with them enough. If it isn’t some damaged famed musician, it’s some damaged famed actor. If it isn’t some damaged famed actor, it’s some damaged famed artist. And if it isn’t some damaged famed artist, it’s some damaged famed fashion designer. All added with an extra dose of drugs, alcoholism and infidelity. Biopics have become somewhat formulaic that if I said there was a French biopic about Yves Saint Laurent, a damaged famed fashion designer, you could tell me exactly what happens, when and why.

There is nothing outrageously spectacular about this film. Unfortunately what Lespert fails to add to the decadence of fashion designing and the array of dazzling clothes is a soul for audiences to latch upon. It’s disappointing because the film becomes everything that people dislike or wrongly perceive about fashion and designers. It lacks a heart, just an abundance of snobbery and decadence that not only makes the lead character highly unlikeable but the flat and empty atmosphere also means the issues he goes through do not appeal to any attention what so ever.

Yves Saint Laurent thinks of itself as a high end catwalk model when it rather resembles that of a shopping centre dummy. It may be great to hang something pretty on, it almost resembles a human but at the film’s core, there is plastic and nothing else. Folly to its own narcissisms, it holds no grounds to keep you watching to the end. There is barely any enthrallment. It’s hard to string any more sentences along about this one. If you are a fan of fashion, it’s worth a punt to admire the clothing. That is where its audience ends. For now, Yves Saint Laurent is easily forgettable.