Paris - RTW SS13 - Saint Laurent

City: Paris
Season: Ready-To-Wear, Spring/Summer 2013
Show: Saint Laurent

After Raf Simons filling up the Galliano-shaped space left at Dior, the matter of who would succeed Stefano Pilati as creative director of Yves Saint Laurent remained unaccounted for. Then, boom, step forward Hedi Slimane, formerly of Dior Homme (yes, the fashion world can at times seem like one exceptionally long-running soap opera) to fill Pilati’s polished Tribtoo pumps at the fabled Parisian fashion house. Slimane delivered the mother of all surprises before even presenting a stitch, however, by dropping the ‘Yves’ from the name and re-christening the label as - wait for it - Saint Laurent Paris. Ooh-err. So next time you find yourself going to say YSL, remember, it is now officially SLP. I feel the same way about this as I do about St. James’ Park being renamed the Sports Direct Arena, though that’s another story… Well, now that we’ve got the 'rose by any other name’ business out of the way, what of the clothes themselves? Frankly, the jury’s still out. While Julia Nobis, for example, wore a look that was grounded in the tradition of le smoking (centre left), elsewhere the references were a tad, well, muddled. Slimane was clearly influenced by Los Angeles, it is his base after all, and while the City of Angels is hardly lacking in style the L.A. look does not exactly jibe well at a design house that has always been about la vraie parisienne. Despite its lack of focus, however, it was not an entirely terrible collection: Kati Nescher’s embellished jacket (top right) was a hit, as were Maria Bradley’s separates (bottom centre), however un-YSL they may have been. But overall I’m siding with Cathy Horyn on this one - fashion, like all art, is subjective, and expressing one’s opinion need not cause such controversy.

This piece was originally published on alisonlaurabell.tumblr.com in October 2012.