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 8 July 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. At fifteen, he befriended Bertrand, a teacher at a Paris lycée, who was ten years older than him.

When he returned to Paris, he attended the Panthéon-Assas University for a few months and became a steward for Air France in 1972, but it was high-society clubs that attracted him. According to Gilles Martin-Chauffier, for fifteen years, Jacques de Bascher "evolved like a snake in the grass" between the gardens of the Tuileries, the five-stars, the Parisian backrooms, the Palace, the rue Sainte-Anne, (Club Sept), the Blue Hand in Montreuil, the castle of his family and the big festivals of the fashion world.

Relationship with Lagerfeld In 1972, Jacques de Bascher first met Karl Lagerfeld at the gay club Le Nuage at the age of twenty-one. A few months later, after he resigned from Air France, he moved to a small studio that Lagerfeld paid for him on rue du Dragon, a few minutes from Lagerfeld's place; they never lived together but were in a relationship until the death of Bascher in 1989, from AIDS. Lagerfeld claimed their relationship was platonic and non-sexual. Lagerfeld told French journalist Marie Ottavi:

Last years and death Jacques de Bascher discovered that he was HIV positive in 1984. At the end of his life, he cut himself off from everyone, unable to bear his physical decline. He died of AIDS at Raymond Poincaré University Hospital in 1989, watched over by Karl Lagerfeld, who had an extra bed installed by his bedside.

In pop culture He was portrayed by Xavier Lafitte in the 2014 film Yves Saint Laurent. He was portrayed by Louis Garrel in the 2014 film Saint Laurent. He was portrayed by Théodore Pellerin in the 2024 TV series Becoming Karl Lagerfeld.