Saint Laurent
Designer: Hedi Slimane

• “Tuxedos, safari jackets and chiffon gowns: the cult designer Hedi Slimane made his hotly-awaited debut for Yves Saint Laurent on Monday with a modern, rock ‘n’ roll take on the house’s iconic silhouette.” {AFP}
• “A rather confused ode to excess that used fringing, leather, lacing, tassels, feathers, sequins, skinny menswear tailoring, baggy pants, cinching cummerbunds, capes, tribal pendants and almost everything else under the sun.” {The Associated Press}
• “More like a greatest hits album than a revolutionary new sound.” {All The Rage/Los Angeles Times}
• “The look was sexy, rock and roll, contemporary, and utterly Saint Laurent.” {The Daily Beast/Newsweek}
• “Le nouveau Western! In Hedi Slimane’s hautely-anticipated first outing for the house, a darkly Western vibe, rife with the classic safari look that Saint Laurent (as in Yves) pioneered so brilliantly, made for a massive hit.” {Daily Front Row}
• “What was most suprising was that it was so unsurprising. … Crucially, what was lacking was the frisson of the unexpected–that challenging jolt that only a really strong show delivers.” {The Daily Telegraph}
• “It was a shock. A shock because it was so unexpectedly reverential and retro. But it was brilliant. Brilliant in the way it was styled, brilliant in the way it mixed in rock ‘n’ roll … and brilliant in its absolute authority and confidence of a focused single theme.” {ELLEuk.com}
• “Nostalgia and rockin’ radicalism met in the debut Hedi Slimane women’s wear show for Yves Saint Laurent, a brilliantly staged performance that met with curiously muted applause.” {Fashion Wire Daily}
• “While the audience may have been expecting a modern collection of precision tailoring, they were instead  treated to the ultimate groupie wardrobe.” {Grazia Daily Magazine}
• “A reverential, nostalgic homage to 1960s and 1970s Yves Saint Laurent … Where this collection felt lacking was in relevance to the real world of what is worn on the streets of Paris and London.” {The Guardian}
• “[A] somewhat tortured and surprisingly literal take on Anita Pallenberg and Marianne Faithfull circa Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg’s Performance.” {The Independent}
• “Mr. Slimane had the chance to show what he has in mind for the fashion of Saint Laurent, and the initial reaction  … was that he had gone in a direction that is very Saint Laurent.” {On The Runway/The New York Times}
• “Hedi is back, and so is Rive Gauche.” {Speaskeasy/The Wall Street Journal}
• “It felt like the real mood of the collection was dictated by Slimane’s L.A. sojourn. The pared-to-the-bone rock-chick look–with its legging-slender pants and tiny sequined jackets–was one facet. The other, deeper reference was the city’s plangent, occult pull.” {Style.com}
• “Slimane’s debut as a womenswear designer shone an unexpected light on him, not as a raging rebel, but as someone who declares himself, first and foremost, loyal to the house’s founding principles.” {Vogue.com}
• “It was refreshing to see him do something so different with the Seventies era–there was no lounge luxe or bohemian flower power here, these were girls with serious rock credentials.” {Vogue.com UK}
• “Did Slimane offer a new, stunning prescription for edgy chic funneled through the Saint Laurent lexicon? Not even close. Rather, he filtered sweet homage through an L.A., rock-loving lens (or possibly, a pitch to dress some of Rachel Zoe’s skinniest clients). It was interesting to the point of odd.” {WWD}