YSL: Rich and Refined
Written by: Godfrey Deeny
Photos by: FWD-Gruber
Click on image to see bigger photo.
Paris, Jan 24, 2001/ Fashion Wire Daily/ --- Nothing much changes at Yves Saint Laurent's
haute couture shows, except perhaps the politics.
The YSL Spring/Summer haute couture collection that ended the season in Paris Wednesday was
rich and refined, even though one could equally well imagine the same clothes ten or 20 years ago.
The current struggle for the soul of the house, however, was played out in the Intercontinental
Hotel for all to see.
The old master was certainly in fine form. Saint Laurent's white shantung blouses with beige
whipcord skirts, cinched-at-the-waist leather jackets or Prince of Wales check suits were as
chic and coolly cut as ever.
For evening, black sequined tuxedos, mousseline and silk crepe
robes and a series of transparent embroidered organza blouses were all outstanding.
No wonder so many grand dames showed up. The President's wife Bernadette Chirac sat at the
head of the catwalk, flanked by Catherine Deneuve and Maryvonne Pinault, whose husband Francois
controls the Gucci/YSL group.
Deneuve looked as impeccable as she did Tuesday when photographed
protesting outside the American Embassy in Paris against capital punishment in the United States.
Punctuality, however, is not the virtue it once was.
Actresses Renee Zellweger and Arielle
Dombasle, and socialite Audrey Gruss all arrived well into the show evoking angry taunts from
the photographers.
And Europe's richest woman and L'Oreal heir Liliane Bettencourt left five minutes early.
Saint Laurent also threw down a symbolic gauntlet to YSL's American ready-to-wear designer
Tom Ford, who took over that post following Gucci's acquisition of Saint Laurent.
Saint Laurent
even deliberately planted a "homage" to Ford's debut collection for the house in October by
sending out a black tuxedo trouser suit worn with no shirt and just a small scarf, almost
exactly as Tom had done in his debut.
One could almost sense Saint Laurent challenging Ford to match the finesse and timeless class
of his haute couture.
Ford did not attend either YSL show Wednesday, kept back in his studio
finalizing his debut YSL men's collection to be unveiled Saturday.
Blond, beaming and relatively trim, Saint Laurent, himself, looked better than he has in years
as he skipped down the catwalk with la belle Laetitia Casta.
Clearly the rivalry is doing him
no harm.
Instead of a bride, Casta played the role of a newly-married beauty, accompanied by
a mock Air France departure announcement for Marrakech, Yves's favorite playground.
The schism between the Saint Laurent "old guard" of Saint Laurent's, long-time partner Pierre
Berge and their cohorts, and the new owners of YSL clearly won't end any time soon.
The program
prominently listed the contentious Yves Saint Laurent Haute Couture boutique on the nearby
faubourg Saint Honoré, which retails luxury RTW "distillations" of Saint Laurent's couture
collections - in direct competition with a nearby Ford-redesigned YSL boutique.
Staff at
the "rebel" boutique worked late Tuesday night to prepare a fresh offering for the wealthy
clients in Paris.
Even the choice of seating was inflammatory.
Mark Lee, the Gucci-appointed president of YSL, placed in the third row, was almost directly
in front of Jean-Jacques Picart.
The move was hardly innocent.
Picart is a senior advisor to Bernard Arnault, the boss of LVMH, who is currently
battling Pinault's takeover through the courts.
Moreover, Picart is the mentor of Hedi Slimane, the YSL men's designer forced out of Saint
Laurent by the arrival of Ford.
The clothes may not change much, but the luxury politics are definitely on the boil.
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