This was one of two films about Yves Saint-Laurent to be released in 2014 and to be nominated for Best Actor award at the 2015 Césars. The other was Yves Saint Laurent (2014), whose star Pierre Niney ended up winning the award.
Official submission of France to the best foreign language film category of the 87th Academy Awards 2015.
In real life, Gaspard Ulliel's parents are both involved with the fashion world. His father, Serge Ulliel, was a designer for sportswear, and his mother, Christine Ulliel is a stylist and runway show producer.
The sketches that Yves Saint Laurent draws in the film were drawn by Gaspard Ulliel himself. Ulliel is seen in the film drawing with his left-hand, as he was left-handed in real life. However, Yves Saint Laurent was right-handed.
After working together on Paris, je t'aime (2006), Gus Van Sant and Gaspard Ulliel kept in touch, and Van Sant wanted to work with Ulliel again on another film. They didn't really know what at that time, and a few months later Van Sant came up with this idea of a film on Yves Saint Laurent. He wanted to adapt this book that was just released at that time called "Beautiful Fall" by Alicia Drake, and so he told Ulliel that he would be a great young version of Yves Saint Laurent, but the film was never made. Ulliel kept thinking that it was a shame that the film never happened, because it would have been such an amazing character to work on. Years later, Ulliel met with Bertrand Bonello for the same role.