Word: sainte
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Pierre Bergé, partner and protector of Yves Saint Laurent, peeks over the battlements at the enemy force below and, as if panicking, fires off a salvo before he has found his aim. "Give me one piece of clothing, one fashion statement that Armani has made that has truly influenced the world...
...temperament is understandable. Bergé has a legend to burnish and a business to run. He sounds like a man who knows strong competition when he sees it taking a stroll down the boulevard, decked out, more than likely, in some splendiferous Armani assemblage. The fact is, Saint Laurent remains the pale eminence of high fashion, in part because of his undisputed creative coups over the years, in part because of his huge volume of business and the relentless mythologizing of the fashion press. The fact is also that while Saint Laurent's contributions have been generative and historic...
...something was designed by Armani." Snaps Bergé: "I'm in the fashion business, and even I can't tell you what an Armani man or woman is." That is just the point. The fact that it got past Bergé so easily may indicate that the Saint Laurent enterprise has lost its sure touch with a significant-and significantly younger-portion of the market, newly moneyed and sartorially independent, who do not want "a look...
Armani has a realist's interest in the work of other designers, and a respect for Saint Laurent that approaches reverence. "He has given so much to the world of fashion, done so much to make women more beautiful," Armani says. "Saint Laurent broke with a certain 'chic' look of the past, which had become redundant, to produce something more youthful, more lively, more modern." Armani is also catholic enough to admire the giddiness of Kenzo, the classicism of Blass, the eccentricity of Karl Lagerfeld and the sidelong inspiration of Kamali...
...kept down because the items are produced in quantity and locally: this fall, an Armani Emporium blouse may go for $35, a skirt may range from $40 to $65, a man's leather jacket from $250 to $300. There have been plenty of designer boutiques-most notably Saint Laurent's Rive Gauche-but never any that set out to sell a full designer line at such reduced prices, without a precipitous decrease in quality. One would be hard put to tell the difference, in fact, between a leather jacket from the Emporium and one from the couture line...