Word: laurents
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...late '50s and early '60s, the trapeze still looks easy and contemporary. It is only by lifting the hem that the intricacy of its high-fashion construction is seen: the organza underskirt with horsehair lining in the hem covering a tulle layer and another of silk. Saint Laurent's loose outline for daytime wear turns up repeatedly in his work over the years: the famous Mondrian skimmers of the '60s, the chemise in his latest collection, which has been installed by the fashion press as the silhouette of choice for this winter...
Other Saint Laurent signatures show up early. One is the "little black dress," a Chanel revolution in the '20s and '30s, when it symbolized the offhand smartness of the modern workingwoman. Saint Laurent reigns over this much copied genre, because it seems to fit his double-sided vision of women-as ladies and as tramps. He has confected delicate, gauzy little nothings, sculpted bold ones, produced sexy variations and tarted up a few that can only be called sleazoid...
...strands that run through his daytime wear, the dominant one is meticulous tailoring. An outfit in loden green wool tweed, made for the Dior label, is a marvel of classic grace achieved through proportion and soft pleating. Pants, which Saint Laurent thinks may be his biggest contribution to fashion, have clear, economical lines, never exaggerated, never mannish. Good tailoring is behind what is truly his greatest influence on clothing, the huge (172 outlets) international string of Rive Gauche shops, started in 1966, that sell Saint Laurent's ready-to-wear line. There are only a few examples...
While the secret of Saint Laurent's longevity is in his daytime clothes, his brilliance shows in his extravagant evening fantasies. There are, to be sure, examples of pure, timeless classicism and of ethereal visions fashioned out of yards of Chantilly lace. More often he sheds convention like an overcoat in springtime. There are reckless forays into nudity, called see-through in the catalogue; avalanches of silk that swell the exemplary trapeze into a balloon; decadent wraith-wear for psychedelic occasions. Is this foolery (all done before the designer turned 40) vulgar, silly, nutty? Yes, probably all three...
...Saint Laurent turned serious about evening clothes. The fashion press, to which he is acutely sensitive, was giving its most reverent attention to his Rive Gauche collections, and so the couturier decided to teach his critics a lesson. Using lavish matierials, he created dazzling sequences of adornments fit for the queens of legend: Spanish motifs that might have been painted by Velásquez, extravagent conjuries of ancient China and, most famous, the Russian-inspired "rich peasant" collection that was front-page news for the New York Times in 1976. The theme was copied internationally in every price range...