vintage perfume ad of the day: YSL Cologne

Before Tom Ford--before Mark Jacobs--there was Yves Saint Laurent. Ford might have raised eyebrows posing nude in Out magazine, and Jacobs, post recovery, seems to have taken every available opportunity to show off his newly sculpted figure (Look, Ma, no love handles!), but Yves trumps them both. One imagines him looking for the quintessential embodiment of the Saint Laurent man. The head shots are spread before him on the drafting table. Whom to pick, whom to pick, decisions, decisions. Eenie, Meenie, Meyenee...Moi! Who better than Yves himself to represent the company in this early, perhaps crucial bid at masculine fragrance? One imagines Yves taking care of business. Perhaps he'd chosen someone else, after all, and the model balked at appearing in the buff. Mr. Laurent was in the house, to show him how the big boys roll. Mr. Laurent WAS the house, and he would have kindly shown that timid model the door.