[birdofparadise]

It said nothing to me until I saw it move.

Where Mr. Slimane could succeed, in ways the designers since Saint Laurent at Rive Gauche have failed, was in the stiffness, in the awkwardness of the models, in the implicit confession that this ride is not going to be smooth.

This was also apparent in Pilati's last collection for the house, perhaps because the pants were stiff, tight. Can it still be seductive if it's awkward? Could it still be considered sensual? How successful could Belle du Jour possibly have been if she really were just a bourgeois housewife? In the stiffness, in the eagerness of the mind and spirit, failed by the body's lack of know how.

It's this dream of YSL, this idea that one could achieve some kind of magical transformation simply through the clothes, simply by strapping oneself in, the sheerness trailing behind you like smoke, in lurid color combinations not hinted at since Mr. James lost his mind.

Slimane was clever in that he didn't pretend to have all the answers. He's checking her out, stalking her, trying to discover who in their right mind would walk around looking like that in 2012, 2013. And if doing so by way of California gets him close enough to begin to make the necessary changes then so be it.

I flip flopped: there were moments where I couldn't help but think of Patti Smith belting out songs on stage with her arms crossed and then, over to Stevie Nicks, chiffon tornado, these well worn rock goddesses who probably wouldn't be caught dead in Saint Laurent at that time. They didn't need him.