YSL's ashes scattered in Morocco

A ceremony was held in the Majorelle Gardens in Marrakech

The ashes of French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent have been scattered in the garden of his villa in the Moroccan city of Marrakech.

Yves Saint Laurent died of a brain tumour on 1 June aged 71.

A second ceremony followed in the adjoining Majorelle botanical gardens which Yves Saint Laurent and his partner Pierre Berge bought in 1980.

His funeral was held in Paris last week, attended by 800 mourners from across the world.

Among the guests at the church were fashion designers Jean-Paul Gaultier, Hubert de Givenchy, John Galliano and Vivienne Westwood as well as French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Saint Laurent's 95-year-old mother, Lucienne.

Pierre Berge paid a tribute to his long-term partner: "You could have slid into fashions at times," he said, "but instead you remained faithful to your own style, and you were quite right, for that style is now everywhere, perhaps not in fashion, but in the streets of the whole world."

Moroccan influence

Algeria-born YSL spent much time in Morocco, and Mr Berge said: "He will stay there in a country that influenced and marked him greatly. He will end up in the Maghreb where he was born."

Obituary: Yves Saint Laurent

It is said that at the age of three in the Algerian town of Oran, Yves Saint Laurent advised his aunt to change her dress. Thus began his interest in fashion.

In a career spanning four decades, Saint Laurent changed the face of fashion with hallmark designs like his women's trouser suits. He became arguably the 20th century's greatest designer of clothes.

The BBC's James Copnall in Morocco says the Majorelle Gardens – a striking and stylish area of respite from the heat of Marrakech – are a fitting final resting place for Saint Laurent.

The designer himself called the garden, and its beautiful blue-walled museum of Islamic art, a source of inspiration, saying he often dreamed of its unique colours.

Pierre Berge said YSL took the essence of the Moroccan Djellaba, a type of gown, and the colour and light of Marrakech, and incorporated it in his work.

Saint Laurent retired from haute couture in 2002 and had been ill for some time.