Saint Laurent Paris FW13

[Antidote]

I loved him at Dior ....
But looking at this, is like looking at a H&M Collection four years ago...

[kunk75]

I might be late on this, but sl pulled all their advertising on style.com after Blank's review

[avout]

I might be late on this, but sl pulled all their advertising on style.com after Blank's review

You'd think the YSL PR team would have learned something after the previous imbroglio. If Hedi is going to do this at all, he at least needs adults around to temper his ego and reassure everyone that it's going to be okay.

[casem]

A fair and suprisingly positive review from Suzy Menkes for NYT:

"PARIS — “It’s a whole new grunge movement in different parts of the city,” said Hedi Slimane, referring to his chosen home of Los Angeles and to the inspiration of his Saint Laurent men’s wear collection.

The French have the phrase for the designer’s remake of an ultraskinny look of coats with a superslim silhouette and jeans split carefully at the knees, the wispy fragments outlined with sparkling embroideries: “plus ça change...” or, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Mr. Slimane was back in the same groove of a downtown music scene that he played with in his years at Dior Homme, before he left to concentrate on photography in nightly haunts in Berlin, London and Los Angeles, where he now lives.

This much-anticipated comeback collection had front row Pierre Bergé, partner of the late Yves Saint Laurent, and the YSL muse Betty Catroux, alongside the PPR chief executive François-Henri Pinault and his movie-star wife Salma Hayek. The result was much more joyous and less intense than in Mr. Slimane’s earlier shows.

A fair carousel, sleek, shiny and modern, whirled around as a backdrop to the display of pin-thin coats and trousers that might have been glued on the models’ skinny legs. But that linear silhouette, looking familiar from this designer, was soon broken up by androgynous, outsize Fair Isle sweaters and by bright check or animal print scarves.

The show was fun, energetic — and much more confident than Mr. Slimane’s debut as a women’s wear designer last season. The only question is whether this reprise of grunge is appropriate to a 21st-century world of financial turbulence. Imagine carefully folded scarves, a tailored camel duffel coat and even a hairy cape looking much more luxurious in the stores.

Saint Laurent already has one confirmed customer. Ms. Catroux, tossing her straw-blonde hair over her boy-band black leather jacket, was in fashion heaven."

[Honey~Blade]

Feels like a watered down version of Number (N)ine.

[fncyths]

oh snappp :

http://yves.bigcartel.com/product/ain-t-laurent-sweat


http://www.highsnobiety.com/2013/01/...s-sweatshirts/

[Vanna]

I went to the Saint Laurent store this past weekend to check out the wares with my friends...suffice it to say, the quality was lacking, and everything felt cheap. There was no "Weight" to anything. This one leather backpack I handled...I thought I was at Wilsons. And the sales guy had the nerve to tell me that "These sneakers are all hand finished. No two shoes are exactly the same. It's all about these tiny details."

I wanted to slap the shit out of that queen.

[Patroklus]

hang tags are tied on by hand bro

[Vanna]

lol the epitome of fanciness and exclusivity.

[Patroklus]

you could have asked, "why haven't the cobblers been fired if they can't even get two pairs to be consistent?"

[Vanna]

Trust me, I almost did. But I thought inducing vomit on the clothes with a Saint Laurent collar stay was enough. And also, the sales guy was actually a friend of my friends.

[Arnaut]

Hedi’s passions for rock and rocker boys were obvious then, but there was a certain formalism at Dior that constrained his impulse to blindly reproduce that culture in his designs, and that tension resulted in some incredible work. By contrast, this is Hedi in full-on candy store mode, madly churning out a pastiche of rocker styles. This is Hedi’s private psychodrama, writ large on the world stage. I’m disappointed that Pilati was ousted for this, and I hope that his minders at PPR can reproduce whatever the conditions were of that intellectual ferment that led to Hedi’s period of brilliance at Dior.

I totally agree, and I have theory that I find it funny that nobody has mentioned yet: Hedi´s present location in LA (and his move of the Saint Laurent atelier there). When all the news about Hedi's rebranding of Saint Laurent became known, this was the fact that worried me the most. I thought the whole thing with dropping the "Yves" and changing the brand-design was both brave and good. But when I heard about his move of the whole thing to LA, I became seriously chilled. This collection kinda proves my worries right. As long as Hedi was at DH in Paris , there was this tension between Parisian chic, scruffy Berlin techno kids and skinny London-rockers. When he moved to LA you could see the change already in his photos. It became the american cliché - rock, rock, rock. Always rock'n'roll. So I am not at all surprised. In fact, I'm quite convinced that his present location has influenced him - in a bad way. A move back might do him some good.

That said, I feel I must say that I don't find this collection as such as disaster as many else (I glanced through some of the other FW13 collections, and I must say that most of them were real zzzzzz-fests), I only would have wished that Hedi continued where he left off FW07...

[mike]

I went to the Saint Laurent store this past weekend to check out the wares with my friends...suffice it to say, the quality was lacking, and everything felt cheap. There was no "Weight" to anything. This one leather backpack I handled...I thought I was at Wilsons. And the sales guy had the nerve to tell me that "These sneakers are all hand finished. No two shoes are exactly the same. It's all about these tiny details."

I wanted to slap the shit out of that queen.

that is because they are using the same production as balenciaga. they didnt even bother to use a different garment care tag or hang tag from the ones currently seen in balenciaga garments. so much for a total vision. the worst part is saint laurent prices are closer to balmain than balenciaga.

[Fade to Black]

don't have much to add beyond the often-noted self-pastiche elements of this collection but i could seriously use this jacket in my life reminds me of my trusted n9 that's starting to give after almost 6 years of constant wear when the season is right for it -

edit - Honey Blade beat me to it. I doubt Takahiro was on Hedi's brain but the leathers here appeal to me precisely because they remind me of that FW07 NN one of my favorite menswear collections of all time (both thematically and aesthetically coherent throughout presentation on runway & also one of the most gorgeously wearable collections i've ever seen for mens FW in stores, at least to my sensibility)

[mrbeuys]