DEL.ICIO.USThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/03/08
In 1963, rumors in the French fashion world said Yves Saint Laurent's house of haute couture was backed by Swiss financiers.
Then the story broke. Not only was Saint Laurent's secret backer a foreigner, he was an American who started in used cars.
 PHIL SKINNER/AJC | ||
| J. Mack Robinson enjoyed a lifelong friendship with fashion icon Yves Saint Laurent, who died Sunday. | ||
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"Sacrebleu!" said Time magazine, calling Atlanta businessman J. Mack Robinson "a reserved and soft-spoken fellow."
"I am completely ignorant of fashion," the then 39-year-old Robinson told the magazine. "But now I am having to learn something about it."
Today, Robinson is 85 and a local icon of commerce for whom Georgia State University's business school is named. He still works each day in his Buckhead office, overseeing a network that includes banking, insurance and media holdings.
The French fashion icon, who died Sunday, became lifelong friends with Robinson, even designing his daughter's wedding dress. "Yves was a creative genius and a good friend," he said Monday.
In 1961, Robinson, who made a fortune in finance and insurance, was looking for investments in Europe when he came across Saint Laurent, a "boy wonder" who had headed Christian Dior's company and was branching out on his own.
The two kept their arrangement quiet, and the brand took off. "I was afraid that American women, like Jackie Kennedy and Lee Radziwill, if they knew an American owned a French fashion house, it would hurt sales," Robinson said in a 2002 interview.
By 1965, Robinson, tired of constant travel to France and incessant publicity, sold out for $1 million, according to reports. In 1999, that company sold for an estimated $1 billion.
In 2002, Robinson, called a billionaire by Fortune magazine, said of his sale, "It's done so well; I think I made a mistake in selling it."
It may have been one of his few investment miscues.
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