Yves Saint Laurent, Spring/Summer '09 (scroll down to read the review)
Yves Saint Laurent
East meets west, familiar territory in fashion, yes, but Stefano Pilati’s cultural hybrids were something else entirely. Pilati, in program notes, spoke of confronting the fetishized Orient with the strictness of Occidental tailoring, without showing mere ‘souvenirs’.
Instead he hinted or suggested at it with kimono shapes and the sarouel, a hybrid of a dress and pant. He continued his fascination with volume, this time creating it by gathering circular cuts of cloth into itself, playing with the angle of the sleeve or tying with bows (or all three together).
This really was fashion for tomorrow yet there was YSL blood flowing through the entire collection, with a strong emphasis on house tailoring: in robe manteau and trouser suits in summer kid mohair, and in a smoking in wool crepe tux matched with a long sarouel.
Lacing used round the neck of a dress or on the hip of a jacket hinted at Saint Laurent’s famous safari suits, but as in the past Pilati always modernises and makes it all seem completely new. Into the mix there was performance in some specially developed fabrications (mohair as light as organza, a waxed grosgrain and an oil slick affect print), sport with the jersey undergarments and geometry in the graphic cage-like belts.
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