The Tastemaker - Stefano Pilati : The New York Times Magazine by Lynn Hirschberg

[MissMagAddict]

Source | The New York Times Magazine | Sunday, September 31

When he was 13, in a prescient act of defiance that would prove to illustrate his contradictory nature, Stefano Pilati tattooed interlocking male and female symbols on his arm. “My parents should have wondered about me right then,” Pilati, who is now, at 42, the designer of Yves Saint Laurent, told me in late February as he stood backstage an hour before the presentation of his fall-winter 2008 collection for women. It was a cloudy night in Paris, and Pilati, who is tall and elegant, was wearing a fitted white jacket and loose gray trousers of his own design. As always, his look was carefully calculated to appear effortless: his pants were just-so short and his nearly unbuttoned, pale blue shirt subtly matched the indigo of his socks. Pilati was chain-smoking, but he did not appear to be nervous, despite the swirl of organized chaos in the white tent, which had been erected inside the Grand Palais. Surrounding him in various stages of dress and undress was a flock of models. They all wore bowl-cut wigs of straight black hair with bangs that covered their eyes and even darker lipstick. With their features obscured and unified, the sky-high, slim women blurred into a sea of androgyny. “It is exactly as I imagined — I can’t tell them apart,” Pilati said, sounding delighted. “They will be a perfect canvas for the clothes.”

Outside the tent was the stage, which Pilati — who professed an early interest in architecture (“I couldn’t tell my parents I wanted to work in fashion,” he said. “They thought everyone in fashion turned out to be gay or a drug addict. And I became both!”) — had transformed into a kind of space-age cathedral. Lining the catwalk were rows of benches, where the media, buyers, a smattering of celebrities (Julianne Moore, Kanye West) and Pilati’s mother would soon sit. This collection — Pilati’s eighth since he became creative director of Yves Saint Laurent in 2004 — was important. In recent years, the house has struggled in the global marketplace. Unlike, say, Chanel, which instantly conjures images of tweed suits and strings of pearls, YSL no longer has a singular identity. Yet YSL stands for Yves Saint Laurent, one of the few true icons of fashion. Saint Laurent, whose designs spanned nearly five decades, was known for a brilliant mix of tailoring, practicality and innovation: “le smoking,” for instance, turned a pantsuit into evening wear before most women even wore pants in public. “Saint Laurent did everything,” Pilati said. “You go to the YSL archives, and you feel he thought of any idea I could ever imagine. It’s intimidating.”

But by 1993, the company was in financial trouble, and Saint Laurent and his partner in business (and for much of his life), Pierre Bergé, agreed to YSL’s becoming part of the state-owned French pharmaceuticals conglommerate, Elf Sanofi. Sanofi sold the label to François Pinault in 1999 for $1 billion, and that same year, Pinault sold it to the Gucci Group N.V., which put Tom Ford, then the designer of Gucci, in charge. Ford was quickly disparaged by critics as the renegade American out to destroy a master of French couture. Ford, who had shepherded Gucci’s rise to prominence by consistently invoking the styles of the jet set ’70s and selling sex, tried this same approach at YSL. But he bumped up against a large obstacle. “Saint Laurent challenged women,” Pilati said. “Tom had a very precise vision of the company that didn’t challenge women.” And yet when Ford quit YSL and the Gucci Group in 2004, his global branding legacy remained. In today’s increasingly competitive marketplace, designers have to do more than dictate the look of the season. More than ever, it is necessary to create a must-have item (usually a handbag) that will project an image for customers around the world.

“There is a difference between having a gift and having talent,” Pilati explained as he sat on one of the benches to watch a final run-through of his show. “Madonna is a talented person, but she is not gifted. She’s not Pina Bausch or Margot Fonteyn. And Tom is talented but not gifted. That’s the way he managed the business. Tom would say: We can’t do this silhouette because she looks fat. Or, Oh, no — women don’t like this fabric; we can’t use it. That mentality was something to learn but was so far from my way of thinking. Why do you want to be safe? I’m more like, Why don’t you wear gray flannel for an evening dress? I find that fantastic! Not Tom. Never.”

Pilati stopped and lit a cigarette. “But if you consider yourself only a gifted person, you live in your la-la land,” he said as the first model emerged. She was wearing a thigh-length, black wool cutaway jacket with wide leg pants that tapered to a cuff. The look was both geometric and familiar. The lines of the clothes, suitable for women of nearly any age, were sharp, but the softness of the unlined fabrics — wool felt, Donegal tweed, cashmere — made the clothes inviting. Pilati stared intently as another model in an asymmetrical leather jacket walked past. “I define myself as a pure creative person,” he said. “But as a designer, you have to manage the business, too. We live in a world where you have to ask yourself, Would I pay thousands of dollars for this dress?”

In past seasons, Pilati was too far ahead of the customer. When he showed tulip-shaped skirts in 2004, the proportion was still confusing to women, and the collection did not sell well. Now, it is difficult to find a skirt that is not tulip-shaped. When, in 2006, he designed long, narrow tunics over pants, his collection was panned, but the following year, the look became a mainstay of women everywhere. Similarly, in 2007, Pilati brushed brightly colored paint on simple white silk dresses, and the look was widely copied by design houses like Max Mara at, of course, lower prices. “Two summers ago, I did flowers,” Pilati said as the parade of bewigged girls continued. “The press killed me because they said it was too romantic. And this summer, flowers are everywhere.” He lit another cigarette. “I used to think it was a good thing to be different than the other designers, but no, it’s not. But I can’t always help it. When I was 17, the design director at Nino Cerruti, who was my first mentor, taught me that to be too much ahead is to be behind. The most important thing is to be right on time.”

As a model in a black wool dress with a transparent bodice marched past, Valérie Hermann, a slim blonde in a white YSL pantsuit, sat down next to Pilati. Hermann became the C.E.O. of YSL three years ago, and since her arrival, losses at the company have been reduced by more than half, from nearly $100 million a year to $48 million a year. Although YSL is considered a French national treasure, it has not been profitable in more than a decade. Its losses are absorbed by the financial strength of its parent company, the Gucci Group, which makes millions on its other brands, like Bottega Veneta and Gucci.

Hermann, who is 45, is often credited with the financial success of Christian Dior, and analysts believe she will help steer YSL toward profitability. “When I arrived at this company, everyone was saying how lucky I was to work at YSL,’ ” Hermann told me later. “And I said, ‘Just what have you purchased at YSL recently? Everyone thought it was such a prestigious brand, but did they want to have a YSL bag? Or a YSL shoe? The answer was always no because they didn’t know what a YSL bag or shoe would be.”

At Dior, Galliano helped to turn around the company when he created a purse called the Saddle Bag. “Accessories drive every luxury brand,” Hermann said. “Shoes and bags are 60 percent of our business. But I don’t treat Stefano like a baby and say, Design a bag or a strong jacket and great pants because that’s what the market desires. Instead, I say, Can I propose something?” In 2005, at Hermann’s suggestion, Pilati designed the so-called Muse bag, which remains a best seller. And this year, he introduced Muse Two, which looks nothing like Muse One. “I do not get this naming of bags,” Pilati explained stubbornly. “Customers seem to like to ask for bags by name, but I don’t really like to name my bags — they are not children or pets.” Muse Two, which retails for just under $2,000, is selling well. “I have reconciled myself to the fact that for many of our customers, their uniform is jeans, a white T-shirt and a Muse bag,” Pilati sighed.

For the fall-winter 2008 collection, Pilati designed a black patent-leather ankle boot, and Hermann has high hopes the shoe will prove popular. “People are talking about an international financial crisis,” Hermann said as she and Pilati watched the last look of the show leave the catwalk. Instead of a ball gown, Pilati ended with the patent-leather boots and a practical black wool coat, which folded around the model’s knees in a loose ruffle. The coat, timeless and versatile, seemed like a smart investment. “I like that one,” Hermann said. Pilati nodded, pleased with the collection. It was serious and spare — a tough chic for tough times.

Pilati’s designs have typically been more feminine and romantic. In the past, he would try to create at least one red-carpet-worthy dress. “But the Oscars and all those events were ruined by the stylists,” he said. “Mr. Saint Laurent would never have tolerated the stylists having this much power. Unfortunately, it does affect sales. If an actress wears your dress, customers will call the day after to get that dress. That one dress may give popularity to the brand, but is it popularity you look for? I’m not sure. I think I’d rather have loyalty.” He paused. “There is a change,” he said as he headed to the backstage area with Hermann. “The difference now is that there is so much competition in the market that I don’t think we should produce too much. The main goal is to create a strong identity.”

 

[MissMagAddict]

continued...

A few months later, Pilati was walking through Paris when he spotted a pair of sandals on the feet of a Moroccan man. They were rustic, made of woven camel hair, and they were tanned with age. “Did you see those sandals?” Pilati asked Siddhartha Shukla, his head of communications, who was with him. “They are amazing. I want to buy them.” Shukla, who had not noticed the sandals, was sent to purchase them off the man’s feet for 100 euros (about $150). “The guy wanted 500 euros,” Pilati told me a few days later over lunch at the plush Hôtel Plaza Athénée, near his office on the Avenue George V. “But we got them for 100. The sandals are from a tribe of Bedouins, and they are genius. Maybe they’ll inspire me, maybe not. One day, they might fit into a Moroccan moment. You can find greatness everywhere. You just have to look.”

Pilati, who is appealingly direct about his anxieties, was in a cheerful mood. Maybe it was the sandals, maybe it was the reviews of the women’s collection, which was heralded as a breakthrough. In The New York Times, Cathy Horyn wrote that “Mr. Pilati crossed that mysterious bridge to the big stage. In their movement, shape and attitude, the clothes evoked the swagger and spirit of the Rive Gauche era, when Saint Laurent ruled.”

Since the show, Pilati had been working nonstop. “You’re almost like an athlete,” Pilati said as he ordered steak tartare. He was wearing a black turtleneck and narrow black pants with a royal blue pinstripe. “Every day I’m working on everything from the design of our shops to the heel of a shoe to a piece of fabric for men’s to knitwear for women to the media campaign. But it’s good for me. Work is my salvation.”

Although he’s in a constant swirl of activity, there’s something solitary about Pilati. He lives alone with an albino boxer named Bepi, not far from his office, as if on an island of his own making. For the last few weeks, Pilati’s 16-year-old nephew has been living with him. “What a change!” Pilati said now. “My life is me, me, me. I organize my life only to think about myself. All of a sudden, this nephew is here, and it’s not just me in the mirror. His eyes are looking at me. And I think, What is he thinking?”

Pilati paused. “Sixteen was the age I decided to be part of the fashion world,” he said. The only son of a government employee, Pilati grew up in Milan with two much-older sisters. “I was an unhappy child,” he recalled. “With my father, everything I said or did was wrong. Everything I wore was wrong. Everywhere I wanted to go was wrong. So I began to worry that there was really something the matter with me. When I was sketching something, I didn’t feel alone. Eventually, I said, Enough — I’m going to belong to another world instead. And the fashion world looked beautiful.”

Pilati is an avid believer in the transformative power of clothes: he has, in his Paris apartment, six specially designed closets that contain everything from basics in every color (“there are nuances in beiges and grays”) to hand-knit sweaters to jewel-toned blazers to velvet evening slippers embroidered by Lesage with Pilati’s initials. “I have been this way since I was a child,” Pilati said. “I never had sneakers. My mother was pushing me to dress up, but from the ages of 8 or 9, I picked out my own clothes. I would change my clothes up to five times a day. To play, I had clogs. I had loafers to go to school. Lace-up shoes to go to Mass. This kind of discipline taught me a lot. To the point where I could then be more transgressive. I tried very early to break rules. I wanted to wear clothes from Fiorucci, that was the dream. My mother didn’t want that. And, of course, I did.”

In 1982, at 17, Pilati worked as an intern for Nino Cerruti, who was known for his innovations with fabric. Cerruti’s design director, Gianni Aglietta, asked Pilati to put adhesive dots on the fabrics he preferred. Instinctively, Pilati picked the ones that sold best. Recognizing Pilati’s talent for selecting fabric, which is the linchpin of clothing design, Aglietta began taking him to the mills and taught him about the structure and history of cloth.

“That was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Pilati said, “but I was still lonely. And when you’re by yourself, you’re much more attracted to following someone in the wrong direction.” He paused. “Not long ago, a friend told me that being a heroin addict requires the highest form of discipline,” he continued. “I was working while I was a heroin addict. It was integrated in my everyday life: in the morning, you take the drug, and then you go to work, and then again in the afternoon and evening. You can easily switch from the obsession of the drug to the obsession of the work.”

By the time he was 31, he was at Prada, where he worked on the Miu Miu line; he had been through rehab twice. “The second time was a very tough program that had been created in Canada for Vietnam vets,” Pilati said. “Can you believe it? I lived for one year with a T-shirt, a pair of jeans and nothing else. That was a shock from where I was coming from.” He laughed. “In the end it was a privilege to spend a year on myself. I went to rehab because the drugs were starting to affect my creativity. I was in love with someone, and I thought it would be forever. But it wasn’t. Now, I never look back. I’m much more intrigued by lucidity than I was by my alteration.”

After five years at Prada, where he began working in 1995, and a previous stint at Armani in the early ’90s, Pilati was approached by Tom Ford, who was known to assess potential hires on the basis of whether he could imagine having dinner with them. “Tom is a seducer,” Pilati said. “When I met him, I was under his spell. But I was amazingly scared to move to Paris and work for YSL. Prada was like a family, and it was a very female environment. Tom was surrounded by men, and he was like a fashion designer in a movie. We were naïve at Prada — we did things because we liked them, and they took off. Tom was much more calculated. I spent the first year trying to absorb his mentality. It was very difficult. Tom was mostly living in London, and I was being tested by everybody at YSL in Paris. Even the receptionist. They all hated Tom, and they were all telling me about Mr. Saint Laurent and what he used to do.”

The fashion business was greatly complicated by the collapse of the American market after 9/11. “On Sept. 11, the ’90s ended,” Ford told me near the end of 2001. “It was a difficult moment to build a brand.” But YSL began to rebound when it introduced a bag (the Mombasa) and a perfume (Nu). “It was quite fascinating for me to observe all that,” Pilati continued. “And useful. They were all looking for the brand bag to save us. I said, ‘I’m not a bag designer, but I will do my part.’ We came up with the Mombasa.”

When Ford resigned after a power struggle with his bosses at Gucci’s parent company, PPR, it was widely assumed that Pilati would inherit YSL. “I was candidate No. 1,” Pilati recalled, “but they were still looking for someone else. Every day there was a new candidate — Hedi Slimane or Alexander McQueen — but I didn’t wait for them to tell me yes: I started designing two collections. And, eventually, they gave me the position.”

From the start, Pilati sought to re-establish Yves Saint Laurent’s sophisticated legacy. On a fundamental level, YSL has always represented an oasis of good taste. “There’s a formality to my designs,” Pilati said. “And yes, I think people can learn taste. It is part of my job to teach them.”

On June 1 of this year, Yves Saint Laurent died at the age of 71 after a long illness. He received a grand funeral, attended by President Nicolas Sarkozy, legendary muses like Catherine Deneuve and nearly every major designer. It is impossible to imagine any American fashion designer eliciting a similar reaction. “It was like a state funeral,” Pilati told me.

It was very early July, and we were on the Eurostar heading from Paris to London for a party celebrating Édition 24, Pilati’s more affordable line of clothing. “Everything in the collection is around $1,100,” Pilati said as he peeled a peach on the table between us. Édition 24 was conceived as seasonless clothes for women who travel — classic pieces like a trench coat, simple trousers or a cardigan, tweaked and linked by fabric and presentation.

I asked Pilati if Saint Laurent’s death had liberated him in some way. “I have thought about the Freudian ‘killing the father stuff,’ ” Pilati said, “but I have nothing but respect for Mr. Saint Laurent. For me he was a spiritual presence. He was never at the studio, and I never really talked to him. I did not work for his approval. Bergé, on the other hand, is a presence. He comes to the office, and we show him the collection and the campaign.”

Pierre Bergé was in many ways the inventor and protector of the YSL identity; the foundation he established with Saint Laurent still controls the designer’s vast archives. “I would like Bergé’s approval,” Pilati said. In the last YSL ad campaign, which was conceived by Pilati, Kate Moss is standing outside YSL’s and Bergé’s foundation, her face pressed to the glass door where their names are inscribed. “You don’t know if she wants to get in or they are trying to keep her out,” Pilati said. “That mirrors my anxiety.” Although Ford may not have been intrigued by the YSL archives, Pilati has visited often, most recently to study the famous Ballets Russes collection, which featured enormous floor-length taffeta skirts. “Sometimes you can see a certain color or an embroidery or a technique,” he said. “There is nothing that Saint Laurent didn’t think of first.”

Pilati is also inspired by Saint Laurent’s freedom in expressing his sexuality. “He and Bergé were the first famous gay couple,” Pilati said. “I think a lot about whether or not my being homosexual affects my work as a designer, just as I think it influenced film directors like Derek Jarman and Pasolini and artists like David Hockney and Francis Bacon. I always wonder why 99 percent of the top male fashion designers are homosexual. In my case, I would say that my sexuality has led me to love women to death and to hate them as well. This is the engine for my creativity.”

For many years, Pilati lived as a heterosexual, and there are women who knew him back then who were surprised by the switch. “I was shocked,” one told me with a certain sadness. “He’s so handsome, and he always had girlfriends, and I thought Stefano was open to anything, but that may have been wishful thinking on my part.” As always Pilati sees things in less black-and-white terms. “I decided to be my homosexual self,” he said matter-of-factly. “And it helped me understand the male mind. But when I do a fitting with a woman, I think, Would this woman seduce me? Being gay allows me to be objective about women.”

Despite his sexual preference, Pilati does not like fashion shows that feature men. “There is a dream factor linked to female models that you don’t have with male models,” he said as the train sped toward London. For the last two seasons of his men’s-wear collections, Pilati has made a short film rather than having models parade down a runway. “A well-dressed man is someone you want to share an evening with, have a conversation,” Pilati continued. “You don’t want to see him on the catwalk. Whatever your sexuality, fashion is female.” Pilati took a swig of water. “I know I sound contradictory,” he said, “But even as a gay man, with women, my intent is in refining the curve of the female form. How beautiful is it to see the breast or the derrière moving on the street? We are all seduced by the blue of the sky and the red of the flower, why not the behind of a woman? It’s just a beautiful part of nature.”

 

[MissMagAddict]

continued...

Later that evening, around 9 p.m., Pilati arrived at Dover Street Market for the Édition 24 party, nearly two hours late, with Naomi Campbell on his arm. Campbell, who is featured in the fall YSL ad campaign, was wearing a beige YSL dress that was tightly fitted at the waist with black bouclé detail and then pouffed into a mushroom-shaped skirt. “I love Stefano’s clothes,” Campbell told a small throng of reporters. Pilati, who had changed into loose gray pants, a cornflower-blue jacket accented by a polka-dot pocket square and (strangely) New Balance sneakers, almost blushed. Stepping in, Valérie Hermann, wearing a fitted YSL dress in a reptile pattern, guided him toward the Édition 24 section of the store. “Everything is symbolism,” Pilati said to a journalist as Hermann pulled him away. “Naomi represents the new world — in my mind, she is a mix of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.”

Dover Street Market is a six-floor shop devoted mainly to the Comme des Garçons empire. Interspersed among the various CDG brands are solo racks of clothes by designers like Rodarte and Alber Elbaz of Lanvin. The idea is to offer something in Dover Street that cannot be found anywhere else. Toward that end, Pilati designed a special Dover Street cloth shopping bag for every Édition 24 purchase. He shrunk the YSL logo until it looked like tiny scratch marks and scattered those shapes all over the canvas sack. “He’s also only doing turquoise and red clothes for Dover Street,” Hermann said.

Even with the addition of that charming bag and the colored clothing, the Édition 24 display was minuscule and hardly seemed worth a trip to London, much less a gala celebration. Pilati stuck close to Campbell, who investigated the two racks of Édition 24 clothing. There was a patent-leather trench coat that seemed to particularly intrigue her and a black cashmere wrap that she looped around her neck. “I said to Valérie that maybe the next Édition 24 collection should be all about health food,” Pilati told a journalist. “It’s the concept that’s important: you can wear an expensive jacket with a very cheap T-shirt, and you’re set.” In fact, Hermann and Pilati were planning Édition Soir, which would allow a customer to order from a collection of 25 YSL evening dresses in a variety of colors and fabrics. “There’s a need,” she said. “French people don’t really wear long dresses, but they need cocktail dresses, and what if you’re the sister of the bride? Or even the bride? We want to be there if you need a dress.”

Pilati lit a cigarette. “I always start out loving these events,” he had told me on the train, “and then I quickly want to leave.” When we exited the Eurostar, he looked over at a group of four men who had been holding a meeting during the entire three-hour trip. “I’m not a businessman,” he said, shaking his head. “But actually that’s not correct. I have become a businessman. The times require that.”

At Dover Street, the reality of the epiphany seemed to be registering: “How often can you say that these clothes are a good investment?” Pilati said. He picked up a cardigan that had a small button detail on the lapel. “I would like everyone in the world to wear this,” he continued, “but I’m not sure I want to be the one to say that.”

It was around noon on a cool day in July, four days after the Dover Street event, and Pilati was concentrating on his fit model, who was standing before him in the fourth-floor YSL studio. One floor down was his personal office, with its curved 1960s Charlotte Perriand desk and a mannequin wearing a dress made out of zippers by Junya Watanabe, a designer Pilati has never met. The studio is large, with wall-to-wall cream carpeting and, at one end, a mirrored wall that conceals a dressing room. Pilati, who was wearing a midnight-blue cardigan designed to look as if it had carefully darned moth holes (although no moths were involved), was sitting in front of a long table flanked by two female assistants. He was wearing glasses, and he was smoking.

For the past few months, Pilati had been inventing this collection. “There’s something intriguing about air,” he told me cryptically in February, just days after he showed his fall collection. “I’m intrigued by flatness. So I need to refine the air with flatness.” But adapting that general and perplexing mood required fabric.

From beginning to end, it’s fabric that seems to speak to Pilati. Back in the studio, he picked up a piece of cloth and dropped it to the floor to see how it would fall; he scrunched up some linen in his hands and released it to test its body; he stretched a piece of nylon to gauge its elasticity; and he draped a triangular piece of metallic leather over his shoulder to study the iridescent shine in the mirror. “Show me the next look,” he said in French as he stared at a swatch of black knit woven with tiny black pearls.

A slim brunette model emerged from the dressing room in a tunic that ended in harem pants. After designers create a look, pattern makers and assistants assemble something like a rough draft of the imagined garment — this would be the first time Pilati would see his spring collection on something other than a dummy. True to his vision of the air, the garment was transparent. “I don’t like the naked bit,” Pilati told an assistant, who was wearing a belted sarilike dress. He pinned the side seams to make it tighter across the bust. Pilati then pulled up the shoulder and asked the model to walk. “I’m not sure,” he said. “Trop basic.”

Pilati, who was going back and forth between Italian, French and English in nearly every sentence, studied the gray jersey fabric. He continued tweaking the jumpsuit while the assistants observed. “The roundness of the front is not correct at all,” he said, sounding clinical. “We need to get the shape down.”

The model was asked to change clothes, and she soon returned in a white skirt and a short-sleeved knit sweater. Pilati pulled at the nylon ribbing that finished the sleeve. “This is a little gay pride, no?” he said, pointing to the binding elastic. “I get scared when it looks random, like something that is not considered.” He paused. “Personally, I would wear that.” Pilati has been known to try on his women’s collection in order to check the weight or movement of a garment. “I happened on him once in that state,” Hermann recalled of seeing him in a petticoat. “I said, ‘Stefano, take that off!’ ”

After he puzzled over a metallic knit twin set (“Why is this button brown? It’s not like we need to invent something: mother of pearl is in nature”), disapproved of a gray sheath with a see-through panel on the back (“There’s something vulgar about it — if you wear a bra, you will see it, and I hate to see the bra”) and remained undecided about a T-shirt full of holes created by the application of acid on the fabric (“Maybe it’s so bad that it’s good — we need to leave room for accidents”), Pilati was finally impressed by a white, one-piece long-sleeved knit body suit. When the model appeared, he was speechless. He asked her to turn around slowly. “You go, girl,” he said admiringly.

It was difficult to imagine how this skintight garment, which would be virtually impossible for anyone but a model to wear, would encourage the global marketplace to buy YSL, but it did reveal a provocative vision. “It’s just a brick,” Pilati told me later. “I see everything that I’m doing at YSL as another brick to build, build, build. Eventually, there’s going to be a wall that will either separate me forever or a tunnel that will connect me to the world.” Pilati laughed. “Maybe I’ll open a window from time to time, but then again, maybe not.”

 

[birdofparadise]

I'm never sure how to feel about Pilati. There's a bit of pity at him having to deal with the history and reputation of the house. But then so many contemporary designers (Prada and Mr. Jacobs surely) have been able to show master collections under the influces of Saint Laurent. So why has that yet to happen successfully here? I find the idea of throwing out the baby with the bathwater in an attempt to showcase your own voice a bit cowardly. If you want to do your own thing, get your own house. Funny how Lagerfeld at Chanel comes through even though he continues to play with those same references season after season after season. Latching onto Naomi Campbell (which is odd since he told Robin Givhan: "Sometimes it's not your choice. You can't find [black models] that are beautiful and with the right proportions. I prefer them with lean proportions with no big hips") dissing Tom Ford and playing up old drug addictions should be old news by now. I smell a talented, not gifted, rat.

 

[Spike413]

Judging by the little bit I've read about him and seen him in interviews, there's something about him as a person that I like. I can't explain what or why, but it's there.

As far as his designs, I felt like his two most recent outings weren't as brilliant as many people (critics, retailers, fans) were making them out to be, particularly with fall. Don't get me wrong, those cutaway coats with the flared out tail in the back are beautiful, as were some of the sculpted dresses. But watching that runway show now I can't help but think that it wasn't as YSL as everyone makes it sound. It was very cold, clinical and harsh....and those aren't words I'd normally associate with YSL. I also think it pushed the androgynous element too far into something sort of sterile and genderless.

I think that in many ways Pilati's woman is at the opposite end of the spectrum from Ford's YSL woman, and the YSL ideal is somewhere in between them. Ford was probably too focused on injecting that dark eroticism part of Saint Laurent into his work. Pilati seems to avoid it completely, or just barely crack the surface of that sexual tension and then pull away like he's burnt his hand. In that sense I don't think Pilati's most recent work is any more befitting of the house than Ford's was. Interestingly enough, they both had one collection where they almost managed to strike the right balance. For Pilati, I think his S/S 07 show (harem pants not included) was the closest he came to merging the romance, beauty and sexuality of YSL into one collection. It had a sweet/sl*tty tension going on that I think worked well and if he had edited more carefully and focused on fewer ideas it could've been really good.

I hope he gives us something with a bit more soul come spring, cause even when his earlier stuff looked too fussy and not particularly cool, it had soul.

 

[dior_couture1245]

^^
I totally agree. I think Pilati's SS 08 and FW 08 collections have been his weakest collections to date. I mean, I certainly liked those collections, but like you mentioned, there wasn't a lot of soul in the collections...they didn't feel passionate and personal, like a lot of YSL's own work always did feel. The set, the music, the styling, the hair and make up, and the clothes all lacked emotion, whereas Pilati's SS 05 - FW 07 collections felt exciting and even had hints of humor (which I am finding I seem to like in fashion shows and collections...just a little dash of fun). His earlier collections seemed very natural while his two most recent have seemed a little forced. And to be totally honest, I've always thought that Pilati's SS 05 - FW 07 period was the best period in YSL history. I mentioned several times that I felt he did YSL better than YSL did YSL (that's certainly not to discredit Yves...he is a legend and has done volumes for fashion, I just liked Pilati's vision of YSL maybe more than the YSL archives).

I'm also intrigued by Stefano, the man. I think he's wildly attractive and has a very magnetic, mysterious personality (plus, he's got a fantastic laugh!). Sometimes I feel like he's trying a little hard to be esoteric and profound, but most of the time I get the sense that he's genuine.

Plus, I really love what he said about Naomi being like Obama and Hillary combined!

 

[Meg]

^
yes I agree, I also think he tries to hard to be esoteric and profound, but I guess I'm the opposite of all of you. I have to overcome my dislike of him as a person, to enjoy the clothes. I thought the article was way too fawning anyway. And his comments Sorry, but YSL and Berge were not the first famous homosexual couple. Yves struggled with being open with his sexuality quite a bit in his days with Dior and even a bit after meeting with Berge, so to suggest he was some sort of entirely free gay man is wrong. I also don't recall Pilati getting critically panned for his earlier shows, if anything, I recall rave reviews. This whole, oh I did flowers and everyone hated them and then a year later, everyone was doing them. Someone is always doing flowers. Okay, perhaps not the massive cape of them, but to suggest that he was the only one doing them is ridiculous. And plenty of people wore that cape too. Bleurgh. It just feels so trite, so formulated and false, that it's uninteresting.

 

[Jamess]

^^
I totally agree. I think Pilati's SS 08 and FW 08 collections have been his weakest collections to date. I mean, I certainly liked those collections, but like you mentioned, there wasn't a lot of soul in the collections...they didn't feel passionate and personal, like a lot of YSL's own work always did feel. The set, the music, the styling, the hair and make up, and the clothes all lacked emotion, whereas Pilati's SS 05 - FW 07 collections felt exciting and even had hints of humor (which I am finding I seem to like in fashion shows and collections...just a little dash of fun).

Ive read that same opinion a few times and I have to completely disagree, especially about the new Fall collection!
Have you seen the video of it at ysl.com?
I think it was one of the most 'emotional' and feminine shows Ive seen (online of course). The set and music were genius, the set was built like a giant speaker to reverberate the soundtrack, it looked a little clinical but I dont think that means it lacked a certain romance.
I liked that everything was cancelled out, it created a tension when you saw a little bit of skin or recognised a model behind the styling. The ultra-feminine silhouette and very subtle YSL references were genius I thought.

 

[softgrey]

this year, he introduced Muse Two, which looks nothing like Muse One. “I do not get this naming of bags,” Pilati explained stubbornly. “Customers seem to like to ask for bags by name, but I don’t really like to name my bags — they are not children or pets.”

......

 

[JuiceMajor]

interesting article

 

[softgrey]

“Everything is symbolism,” Pilati said to a journalist as Hermann pulled him away. “Naomi represents the new world — in my mind, she is a mix of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.”

...

what the hell?!?!...
.........

 

[Luxx]

^She is a woman so she channels Hilary and she is black so she channels Barack. So deep...

I find Stefano to be infinitely interesting as a person - I agree with Meg, that there is this sort of cultivated air about him that can grate. You do get the feeling that his words are very carefully chosen for effect at times. Though at other times there is also his tendency to put his foot firmly in his mouth. Remember his intereview with Robin Givhan, if ever there was a foot in the mouth moment it was that one...

I don't feel like he's necessarily perfected what he wants to do at YSL. He appears to be hitting his stride but no one really should have to go back and be compared to someone like Yves. No one can legitimately live up to that - designers have done Yves themed collections recently and its all be rather flat in my opinion. Its too soon. I'd rather just see Pilati do his own thing the way Alessandra is doing at Valentino now. Past is past - I'm more interested in the brand's future. I do feel as though he has successfully reinvigorated the line recently.

I also love the thinly veiled contempt designers have for some of their consumers. Whenever they bring up the accessories lines I can almost see certain designers rolling their eyes in disgust. I get a little bit of that from Stefano in this.

As for his comments toward Tom I don't find them offensive in the least and I'm a huge Tom fan. Tom's gift was marketing / self-promotion, running a business. He was and is a capable designer but he's a genius at getting the Tom Ford name out there. That would naturally result in him being not so popular at YSL - he was pretty loathed at YSL during that time period though I personally thought his collections were elegant and erotic. I can see where he and Stefano have different approaches to things - almost opposite ends of the spectrum. Love them both though.

 

[Meg]

ah Luxx, I love all your posts because they are so reasoned and thought out, as opposed to my babble! I totally understand what you say and I 100% agree on his collections. I have no problems whatsoever with his design capabilities. If anything, he's one of my favorite designers out there at the moment. I loved the f/w 08 presentation and I feel that what he does is in line with Yves aesthetic and in many ways, doing what I imagine Yves himself would do if he was capable (and still with us). It's always interesting, invigorating, romantic, bold, and beautiful. I have no qualms. And I agree with what you say about Tom, absolutely. There are many legitimate criticisms of Tom's work at YSL, it's just that Stefano listed none of them! All the things he criticized seemed so childish and without merit. That's what grates on me.

 

[softgrey]

I also love the thinly veiled contempt designers have for some of their consumers. Whenever they bring up the accessories lines I can almost see certain designers rolling their eyes in disgust. I get a little bit of that from Stefano in this.

i am about to sound like one of them now...
but i do think it's rather sad that so many people think that a t shirt, jeans and a LARGE designer bag qualify as fashion...

it leaves very little for FASHION designers to DESIGN...

that MUST be frustrating to creative people who want to CREATE...
and push the boundaries...
not just sell clothes...but make a creative statement...

i can see why they would be miffed......

 

[Meg]

well they shouldn't be, because it's exactly THOSE people who keep them in business. If their prices weren't so high, more people would consume their merchandise, but of course, there are many reasons not to lower prices (lower margin of profit, high expenses to produce, brand exclusivity, etc) but I mean, they need to show bags, shoes, etc. on the runway. And if they have such contempt, don't produce it. I agree, that it's silly when people pick up a tiny nylon Prada bag, with a metal triangle on it, and think that they are directly in fashion but at the same time, like cosmetics, etc. these provides the profit margins that allow designers to do whatever they want on the runway.

 

[dior_couture1245]

And I don't think he's such an intelligent or avant garde designer either. Let's not lose sight of the fact that for most of his collections he was dousing his clothes in romance and ruffles, making women look genuineley, almost ridiculously, pretty and feminine. I just don't buy this new cerebral minimalist thing he's doing because it just comes off as so laborious. And making strangely cut pants or using gray flannel for eveningwear (which is a strange choice for a full length dress since it doesn't move very nicely, but I digress) doesn't make someone an intelligent designer.

I agree. This new minimalist thing he's got going feels very forced whereas his earlier work seemed much more natural. He's trying hard to be intellectual, and that's the worst.

Also, I agree that it is tasteless of Pilati to badmouth Tom. I've always found it very low when designers bash each other...the only one who can get away with it is Karl...everyone else comes off sounding arrogant and self-important.

It would have been one thing for him to say, Tom and I worked very differently, his aesthetic was different from mine, etc...but it's quite another to insult his work.

 

[Bahiyya]

Sometimes I think Karl L is the only designer who should be allowed to give interviews. Blah, blah, blah "pure creative person" blah blah blah "everyone hates Tom!" blah blah blah "Vietnam rehab!" Those obnoxious quotes are going to ruin my next shopping trip. It was hard enough getting over the "beautiful black models are so hard to find, mon ami, and their bodies, quelle horreur!" But he sure tried to make up for it with the Naomi casting, eh? I look forward to seeing Tom Ford in drag for YSL Spring 2009.

 

[Salvatore]

Well I believe Pilati is just as bad as not "challenging" women as if I can remember, he was guilty several time of over conceptualising his collections to the point where it was lame. Anyways, both Pilati and Ford are good designers so doesn't really matter.

 

[Bahiyya]

^^ That was just him being a gifted intellectual! He should wear geeky classes so I can tell the difference between him and the low slinging commercial Ford.