YSL Rive Gauche by Tom Ford: Boogie Nights
By Timothy Hagy
(Photo by Gruber-FWD)
PARIS, Jan 28, 2003/ FW/ --- Tom Ford just seems stuck in the 70s.
If Boogie Nights and Saturday Night Fever will have a remake this decade,
Tom Ford will be the costume designer.
With ballooning pants, print shirts, and wide lapel pin-stripe suits and
metal belts blaring out the logo YSL, the suits just screams DISCO!
True, there are some leather jackets and pieces which are great representatives
of the era, and would fit in the 21st century.
Even the leather accessories which were sent on the runway will be useful to the
frequent-flier male.
But, the latest collection of Yves Saint Laurent Rive Gauche seems
strangely out of step with the time, especially as Chanel's recent marketing survey
revealed that the younger generation is far more attracted to a notion of romanticism
than the pent-up emotions characterized in Boogie Nights and Saturday Night Fever.
Opulent satin and velour, together with trenches sewn of aged leather, seemed, at
least, to be an in your face kind of extravagance given rising Global tensions.
To be fair, this collection which was also inspired by the 1970s, same as the Gucci
Men's collection shown in Milan is much better than the later.
At least with this collection of YSL Rive Gauche, you can conjure up an image of
Mark Wahlberg instead of Rob Reiner's Meathead of the 1970s sitcom 'All In The Family'
which the Gucci collecion did.
The Fall / Winter collection of St. Laurent was unveiled in a boutique in the 8th
Arrondisement of Paris in a space so small that only 180 people could be accommodated.
Even Dominico De Sole, CEO of YSL and Gucci was assigned the standing area.
Wheter it was done to give a notion of exclusivity or trying to cut down costs with
the Gucci Group's declining sales, we will never know.
Yet, one cannot help but wonder what is the true reason.
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