There's a fluttering of petticoats in the world of cinema.
It might even be handbags at dawn for the factions behind two films based on the designer Yves Saint Laurent to be released this year.
The first, entitled Yves Saint Laurent and released last week, is supported by Saint Laurent's former lover and business partner Pierre Bergé.
The makers have had access to the archives of the Foundation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent as well as its collection of costumes and it was filmed in the designer's Paris studio.
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The film stars Pierre Niney who with his own glasses and a prosthetic nose bears such a startling resemblance to the designer that apparently even Saint Laurent's dog thought he'd found his old master.
The rival film called simply Saint Laurent has a scheduled release date in France of October 1. Here the couturier is played by the former Chanel model Gaspard Ulliel.
It doesn't have Bergé's approval. It does however have the support of the conglomerate Kering who currently own the brand.
Bergé has said he won't try to ban the film but he will sue if clothes and sketches not actually made by the designer are shown.
"Bergé's role, even when Saint Laurent was alive, has been 'I tell the story,'" says Thomas Bidegain, scriptwriter of the second film. Saint Laurent had a very complicated life and Bergé always managed the legend."
And what a story he has to tell.
For years the rumour mill portrayed Bergé either as a steady rock supporting his emotionally fragile reclusive lover or as an evil controlling Svengali who secreted his protégé from the world.
This is his chance to get his side across. And he doesn't hold back.
His film lays open in raw uncompromising detail the tempestuous years that he and Saint Laurent were lovers - the breakdowns, the drugs and the promiscuity.
Bergé mostly comes across as the calm, steady one, Saint Laurent as the genius crippled by chronic shyness, neuroses and addictions.
Even allowing for the history-writer's tendency to spin the past what is clear is how their bond went beyond mere love. They simply couldn't live without each other.
The film begins in Algeria with the teenage Saint Laurent designing dresses for his mother and finishes in 1976 with the end of his and Bergé's romantic relationship and the triumph of Saint Laurent's definitive Opera/Ballets Russes collection.
In 1986, 10 years after the film ends, I worked in one of Saint Laurent's London boutiques.
I was a student and knew nothing about fashion and even less about the great designer. But even I could see how the beautiful fabrics could transform not just a body but a whole person.
These are clothes that make the wearer feel sexy, feminine and invincible.
Shantung silk featured largely that year as well as exquisite tailoring.
I remember a sharp black skirt suit with a peplum waist which would still look cutting edge today. And I learned that often the most wonderfully flattering garments look nothing on the hanger.
These clothes were thrilling and exciting: creations of sheer magic. One of the most treasured items in my wardrobe is a black organza top with satin-edged ruffles. It still makes me feel like a queen.
At the time huge mystique surrounded Saint Laurent who was by now famously a recluse holed up in his villa in Marrakesh emerging twice a year to accept the plaudits at his shows.
Thin and gaunt after years of nerve-shattering breakdowns and drug abuse he looked ever more haunted and awkward.
In between those appearances whispers circulated that he'd died - perhaps of Aids - and Bergé was keeping this a secret to protect the brand. But the whispers were wrong: Saint Laurent lived another 22 years, dying in Paris in 2008.
Yves Henri Donat Mathieu-Saint-Laurent was born in 1936 in French Algeria. It was a privileged childhood spent in a villa on the Mediterranean.
As a small boy the young Yves liked to create intricate paper dolls; by his teens he was designing dresses for his mother.
At 18 he moved to Paris where he studied fashion and beat a young German called Karl Lagerfeld in a design competition.
His genius was recognised by Christian Dior, whose New Look had changed the face of post-war fashion. He appointed Yves his successor.
A successful future seemed assured. But when the 52-year-old Dior died of a heart attack things started to unravel.
National service resulted in Saint Laurent's first major breakdown and he was ousted from his position as head designer. He was just 21.
Enter Bergé. The pair were already lovers, having met at Saint Laurent's first show for Dior, but according to the film it was Bergé's drive that raised the money to create the couture label.
Friends rallied round. Farah Diba asked him to design the dress for her wedding to the Shah of Iran and when he opened his first ready-to-wear store the film star Catherine Deneuve was his first customer.
The Rive Gauche line went on to make pret-a-porter acceptable.
And then there were the models. Never less than controversial he was the first to use girls from different ethnic backgrounds.
His Dior muse Victoire, who in the film gets above herself and has an affair with Bergé, finds herself replaced by Loulou de la Falaise who introduces Yves to drugs.
These were the wild hedonistic days when Saint Laurent was part of the jet set and hung out in clubs such as Régine's and New York's Studio 54.
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