The Apocalypse Comes to Saint Laurent
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Version 0 of 1. The giant pits yawned on either side of the rickety walkway, piled with freshly churned dirt and two-by-fours, a yellow excavator abandoned and listing to one side in a corner. All around the high walls loomed, covered in scaffolding and plastic sheeting, creating an eerie amphitheater. In the middle: metal bleachers and a sound system. It was 8:30 p.m., it was 44 degrees Fahrenheit, the wind was blowing, rain was pelting down and the bass was making the trusses shake. People say the dark ages are back; they worry about the finger on the nuclear button. Well, on Tuesday night, on Day 1 of the final leg of the women’s wear season, the apocalypse came: not to Washington, but to Saint Laurent. And miserable as the whole sadistic setup was — models shivering, audience cold and cranky save those who managed to snag some blankets, headquarters so under construction it looked as if it had been bombed — if you ever want to know what to wear to the end of days (which, in some people’s minds, may be synonymous with next season anyway), Anthony Vaccarello has the answer. In his second collection at YSL, Mr. Vaccarello took the codes of the house, especially those set down in the 1980s by Mr. Saint Laurent as well as those from its more recent reinvention under Hedi Slimane, and owned them, trading the trashiness of last season for a tougher core. And thankfully fewer gratuitous bare-breasted moments. Instead there were one-shoulder distressed brown leather minidresses with a ruffle running up a hip; black sharp-shouldered leather coat-dresses cut to the thigh; skinny ribbed turtlenecks with giant detached shearling gauntlet sleeves and beat-up jeans; crushed velvet gowns slicing across the collarbone and sliced up the leg. Also big men’s bomber jackets and slouchy trousers, for men and women (there were men in the show, too; same story, same staples — almost the same amount of skin). Tuxedo jeans with chiffon blouses dripping Shakespearean sleeves, and velvet minidresses snaked through with crystals — all of which was paired with scrunched-down leather rocker boots and a fierce reverb. It wasn’t subtle, but then, subtlety tends to get blown over by the winds of change. Just lose the big leather rose at the neck and the weird ruffled New Wave apron-skirts. Still, the whole had a force that was simply missing from the tale of the crisis in the bourgeoisie told by Olivier Theyskens in the turn-of-the-century environs of Le Train Bleu, the historic restaurant in the Gare de Lyon. Mr. Theyskens can cut a sweeping marigold moiré Victorian coat with a dash of poetry, disrupt it with denim, put a soupçon of Audrey Hepburn into a cap-sleeved leather mini, and bring it back down to earth with raggedy thigh-highs and black Beatle boots, but the clothes don’t insist too much. Maybe they should. Just as Bouchra Jarrar’s balletic black tie at Lanvin — lovely as bits of it were, all lace and rosettes, crepe de Chine and layers of wafting georgette — needed to get its head out of the blush-toned sand. A glazed black leather perfecto vest added much-needed edge to a ruffled ivory lace and silk gown, and a smoking jumpsuit edged in gold had a cool allure (ditto some great draped satin Jean Harlow gowns). But chain belts featuring jeweled and feathered hummingbirds, and a white satin suit with cherry blossoms languishing on one side, seemed more decorative than relevant. The balance between naïveté and the feminine mystique is off. At least at Jacquemus there was overt acknowledgment of the world turned upside down, thanks to handbags literally turned upside down, and jackets and shirts shirred and pulled to the side, in a controlled kind of twisted romance. Also twisted matador hats, high-waisted toreador trousers and big shawl-like shoulders that hugged the body and looked as if a bullfighter was going to navigate the corporate seas via the South of France. But for how things may look after the storm, there is Maison Margiela, where John Galliano has finally moved beyond a pastiche of his former self and the heritage he found, to create a new signature in skeletonizing garments, reducing them to their bones. Or boning. Imagine trench coats sliced to reveal the fascia of Burberry tartan beneath, the spine framed by the negative presence of fabric in the shape of the Statue of Liberty’s crown. Or black silk gowns hung together along their arteries over flesh-toned leotards and baseball jackets veined in red wool. Or a knit tunic dangling the eyes of assorted peacock feathers instead of paillettes and shearling caps cut into the infrastructure of a crown. Or a handbag turned tribal headdress. It was disciplined and provocative in the best way. (Mr. Galliano had apparently been thinking in part of Marilyn Monroe, who had her own implosion. Though after being run through the meat grinder of his mind, the result had an nonreferential appeal.) By reducing his elements to their essence, he gave himself space to wrestle with reality. And the raw materials to rebuild. |