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Saint Laurent – without Yves and without elegance
Other | Tuesday 5th March 2013 | Serena
The debut of Hedi Slimane at the head of the fashion house Saint Laurent has left everyone speechless. And not exactly in a good way. The designer has completely reinvented the brand bringing on the catwalk ,during the Paris Fashion Week, something very far from what Yves Saint Laurent had accustomed us.
If you think about Yves Saint Laurent women tuxedo,saharianne,elegance and style come to mind, but it seems that eliminating "Yves" from the name of the brand, Slimane also has forgotten these details that have made the history of the French brand.
We found on the catwalk the 90's grunge, made of checked flannel shirts, studded boots, tattered maxi-pull and lace dresses from flea market, totally Courtney Love-style.An operation that seems to follow the footsteps of what YSL did likewise when he founded the label Rive Gauche, trying to reach the young masses of the '60s, a market that was exploding. An obvious attempt to modernize by Slimane,trying to attract a new audience to the maison, something Balenciaga successfully did years ago, but by the reaction of the audience (and from the social networks) this is not convincing.
The main issue? The designer probably tries to provoke, sending models onto the catwalk uncombed and with a casual look. This does not work, the grunge style has been proposed too many times to shock, and the girls we saw on the runway can be found on a walk in Brick Lane. A provocation twenty years old does not make much sense. We can understand that the direction of the brand (under the umbrella of PPR) is to think more about the business rather than to the history of the fashion house but the debut of the talented designer Hedi Sliamane went against the 'experts' and even if they like the style that he proposed, they will not yet be ready to betray the true essence and core styles of YSL.
Pictures by Jason Lloyd-Evans
By Serena Concato
