Jacques de Bascher

Jacques de Bascher (8 July 1951 – 3 September 1989) was a French dandy and socialite best known for being Karl Lagerfeld's longtime companion. A member of Paris's jet set, de Bascher was also briefly the lover of Yves Saint Laurent.

Biography

Early life and education

Jacques de Bascher was born on July 8, 1951, the son of Antony de Bascher (1909-1975), governor of the province of Cholon in Vietnam and an executive of Shell's insurance department on his return to France in 1955. Bascher's mother, Armelle Petit, is descended from a line of landowners in Limousin. He had a younger brother named Xavier, two older sisters, Anne and Elisabeth, and an older brother named Gonzalve. He spent his childhood in a bourgeois Catholic family, between an apartment in Neuilly-sur-Seine on boulevard Commandant-Charcot, which overlooks the Bois de Boulogne and the Chateau Berrière near Nantes.

Jacques de Bascher studied at the small high school Pasteur, then high school Janson de Sailly, and finally high school Charlemagne. At fifteen, he befriended Bertrand, a teacher at a Paris lycée, who was ten years older than him. Bertrand was French, gay, refined—an admirer of Oscar Wilde. He lived in a small maid's room atop a building in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, often visited by curious schoolboys drawn to his worldly charm. de Bascher was fascinated by Bertrand, who wrote letters in Latin and drove a Jaguar, sometimes picking him up from school in it. In March 1967, Bertrand introduced him to another student, Renaud de Beaugourdon, and that Easter, he took the two boys on a cultural trip to England. Both boys were shocked when Bertrand declared his intention to be married, and their friendship came to an end.