This season's fringed shoes may be free-spirited, but they've nothing to do with boho. In fact, with their boyish shapes, mixed-media wingtips, and spritely toe shapes, they're more gamine golfer or pixie pilgrim than anything else — and they're all the more fun for it. Herein, find 22 cheeky styles sure to make Fall dressing a breeze.
Those stories and more in our daily news roundup.
Photo: Elaine Welteroth in front of the the Yves Saint Laurent Beauté counter at Saks Fifth Avenue.
Well, that was fun: another Fashion Month has come and gone. Now that we've had time to regroup, it seems like this one was a lot more eventful than seasons past. Certainly a lot of the excitement had to do with the new arrivals at Dior and Saint Laurent, but those weren't the only happenings that caused a stir this month. From the critic who got into public spats with two high-profile designers to the most recognizable accessory of the season, we examine the reasons why the Spring 2013 collections will stick out in our minds for years to come.
Like any father figure would, PPR chief Francois Pinault defended Hedi Slimane against some of the less kind things critics have said about his debut collection for Saint Laurent. In the process, he also sent a thinly veiled zinger in the direction of Cathy Horyn, and may well have put an end to the war of words between the critic and the designer.
"Hedi Slimane did a remarkable job. I liked last Monday's fashion show very much — the Saint Laurent collection exceeded my expectations," Pinault said. "The house needed both a renovation and a return to its roots and, with Hedi, we have started down that road. I totally stand by the house of Yves Saint Laurent and the decisions made by its teams or its artistic director, and I didn't appreciate that some people tried to use me by linking my name to chatter about invitations or the seating of this or that person."
By "some people," Pinault may have meant Horyn, who wrote in her review of the collection that Pinault expressed dismay when he found out Horyn hadn't been invited to the show. The unfavorable review spurred Slimane to write an open letter posted to Twitter and other missives decrying Horyn as a "schoolyard bully and also a little bit of a comedian." Those tweets have now been deleted. One wonders, now that Pinault has gotten what effectively is the last word in this saga, whether he asked Slimane to put those barbs away in the first place?
From left: Salma Hayek, Francois Pinault, Kate Moss, Jamie Hince, and Vivienne Westwood front row at the Saint Laurent Spring 2013 show in Paris.
Nicolas Ghesquiere admits that Balenciaga "had a size issue" when he first started designing for the house 15 years ago. Now, he wants to make sure that the cuts of his innovative, highly regarded clothing can be worn by women of all shapes and sizes.
"We started very skinny, it's true," Ghesquiere said in an interview with The Sunday Times. "Strangely, we didn't have fit models at all to begin with — just to give you an idea of the size of the company. So we did fittings on the girls at the studio and they were often quite petite. I had a tendency to think good cut and small size, but a good cut should come in big sizes, too. That's what I want to focus on — it's the cut, not the sizing, and if people see that they can wear something in a big size, then I did my job."
On the heels of a news cycle that saw lukewarm reviews for Hedi Slimane's debut at Saint Laurent — and a very public fight between Slimane and critic Cathy Horyn — comes a controversial story that will likely command attention of a different sort. A catalog of some 400 items including sketches, journal pages, and photographs that once belonged to Yves Saint Laurent is at the center of an international legal battle led by Pierre Bergé, who says they were stolen.
The story was reported by WWD on Monday, but its roots date back to the early '90s, when Saint Laurent was in a romantic relationship with his driver, Fabrice Thomas. The relationship lasted about two years, and Thomas acquired the items over this period. After they split, an unnamed German businessman gave Thomas a job. According to a representative for this businessman, Thomas gave his new employer part of the catalog and sold him the rest as a display of gratitude. The businessman now plans to either auction or exhibit the drawings, over 100 of which are erotic in nature. The total collection's worth has been estimated at over $15 million.
Thomas is said to have offered Bergé the opportunity to buy the sketches back, but Saint Laurent's longtime business partner says he is "not willing to pay for something that was stolen," he said. "But I intend to empty every possibility I have to avoid any exhibitions and publication of the sketches."
Bergé is convinced the items were stolen from the Paris apartment he shared with Saint Laurent because of how many items are involved in the case. "Believe me, it would have been impossible for Yves to have given someone 300 sketches. Maybe one or two, but 300? Surely not," Bergé said. "The point is, they were stolen."
Whether he'll be able to get them back remains to be seen. In the meantime, a look at some of the sketches in the catalog here in the gallery.
