Day: 29/09/2021

Revolutionary!

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The second item from the Gap YZY collection is launched. Excited about a hoodie?

By Lester Fang

Wow, Gap YZY has a second item to show! After what seems like an eternity! And after the collaborator Kanye West wore the first—a puffer jacket—to death! Okay, maybe just twice, but it was seen everywhere, so might as well have been really worn. I should add, in the middle of summer, which, in so many cities this year, was seeing record-breaking temperatures. Mr West must like his clothes to trap heat. Now, his follow-up to that puffer jacket is the less warm hoodie, but nonetheless warm (made of “beefy double-layer cotton”, according to GQ), although probably not warm enough for the approaching winter. How this product release schedule makes sense is beyond me. But, at least we get to see something. I was beginning to think the brand may be discontinued.

Why a hoodie, and a plain one? I have no idea. Just as I am clueless as to why a puffer jacket is required in forest fire season. By the front-side product shot, I can’t tell if it is better than those that the Gap is already selling. Its website does not allow me to go beyond the initial group photo of the top. A message tells me unapologetically that I “don’t have permission to access “http://www.gap.com/yeezy on this server”. I take that to mean that Gap has no desire to interest me in the line that they paid Mr West heavens-know-how-many-millions to design. I say that with some certainty because the same thing happened when I took interest in that first puffer jacket. Frankly, the hoodie is not my thing, but I was curious. And curiosity, as I found out, is not what Gap wants to reward.

Gap YZY was announced last June, and the first collection was supposed to drop in the “first half of 2021”, according to media reports. Surely someone at the Gap know we’re now approaching the last quarter of the year. The puffer jacket, aka the ‘RoundJacket’, in one colour (blue), was launched in June for a not-small amount of USD200. It reportedly was all gone in a few hours. Online shoppers were met with a “sold out” message, which, to me, is a lot better than “don’t have permission to access”. But according to Forbes, “the ’sold out’ message customers were seeing was a glitch due to high demand”. And now this hoodie, ‘The Perfect Hoodie’, which is cheaper, at USD90. But it is for pre-order in the US only, with the waiting time for delivery two months if one chooses the black. After a year, just two products? And one that you may not receive after buying until closer to Christmas?

So why the hoodie? Who knows? The real question is, do you need Kanye West to come up with that?

Product photos: Gap. Illustration: Just So

To You, Paris

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Saint Laurent’s love of its home city is again illustrated, as it stages the spring/summer 2022 show under the golden brilliance of the Eiffel Tower

What’s more French than the Eiffel Tower? Or the maison Yves Saint Laurent built? The evening presentation of the house’s spring/summer 2022 collection is in the presence of the 132-year-old tour Eiffel, which reopened in July after being shut for nearly nine months as France dealt with the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. If there is anything that could signal a return to some semblance of normalcy, it is perhaps the towering grandeur of the symbol of Paris. The models walked in the open space, extending Anthony Vaccarello’s connection with the outdoors of the past two seasons, only now in the heart of the city and the home of some of the most recognisable brands in the world, especially those founded here, on which the identity of the brands hinge on. None more so than Saint Laurent, whose founder loves Paris so much, he named a perfume after her. But did the house not say they were opting out of the PFW calendar some two seasons back, even ‘showing’ away from Paris? So what could this presentation, right before the most symbolic of Parisian monuments, mean? Change of mind?

The inspiration this season, however, is not the city per se. Reportedly, Mr Vaccarello was particularly impressed by Paloma Picasso, the French/Spanish daughter of the artist Pablo Picasso. In the inner circle of Yves Saint Laurent, Ms Picasso is considered an important figure although much of the accolades went to Betty Catroux and Loulou de la Falaise (deceased). If Ms Catroux was the tomboy and Ms a la Falaise the dandy, Ms Picasso was the femme fatale, completing the trinity of women who surround the man. When he first met Ms Picasso, he was said to have called out in delight: “It’s Dora Maar!”—the photographer/artist who was the lover and muse of Pablo Picasso (it is not known how the daughter felt when compared to a woman not her mother!). Ms Picasso would take a different path from the other two women: she went on to be a jewellery designer, whose name, like another European Elsa Peretti, is very much linked to Tiffany, now owned by LVMH. And also unlike the duo, she was never thought to be quite the designer’s muse, until now when Mr Vaccarello brings up her name. Is a muse still crucial to a house? Or, is that so many decades ago? In an inclusive society that we are supposed to be in, is singling one woman, even if she’s of international repute, to represent women in general advantageous to a brand?

Whether the inspiration came from a single city or a one woman, Mr Vaccarello is in what may be considered his finest form. Doing away the tiniest of skirts or profusion of marabou, he (re)engineered the chic that is so synonymous with YSL, and gives it a keen street posturing that recalls one Left Bank of the ’70s than the equivalent of today elsewhere. The masculine tailoring, for one, stood dependably tall as the tour Eiffel. Shoulders of suit jackets are pronounced, but not overly large or dropping too much, while sleeve lengths shortened to three quarters—a sum that is consistent with today’s love of volume, but also recall the jackets of the house in the past. One particular comes quickly to our mind, the pink, boxy, one-button single-breasted that was featured in the 1985 TV commercial for the perfume Paris, in which the model and her pronounced and straight shoulder was the embodiment of unattainable French chic. Mr Vaccarello’s own take is less feminine, but they are not diminished of the sharp elegance of tailoring associated with the house, and its story of the young heart.

Another piece was striking to us too: the double bandeau-bikini, which recalls the two bows on a bustier dress from the house’s autumn/winter 1988 haute couture collection, worn by “India’s first supermodel” Kirat Young. Sure, it’s been a skin-showing season, but Mr Vaccarello is able to take what is essentially decorative element of the past and reimagine it as a garment—skimpy as it is—that is a lot less bare than those now so omnipresent and destined to be worn in large numbers soon. Sexiness is also evident in the styling (and even concurrently adopted by very young stars such as Olivia Rodigo), but somehow Mr Vaccarello is able to throw a spanner in the works, so to speak, and temper the sexual strength by doing something quite unsexy: tucking a long wallet into the front waist of pants, not quite like a person doing so with a gun because he has no holster, but like a wet-market-bound auntie, keeping her hands free so that she can bring the bags of vegetables home. Since anything can be sexy these day, perhaps that too?

Screen grab: Saint Laurent. Photos: gorunway.com

The Fake Good

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Lame designs can be instructive: they convince very few

The one thing consistent about Dior under Maria Grazia Chiuri’s watch, apart from unstoppable sheer skirts, is a design sensibility that does not arouse the senses. In a word, banal. Or, another, closer to social-media speak: blah. In fact, it’s hard to find a description not the opposite of dull. Fashion professionals always avoid using the three-letter B-word. So we shall, too. But when we run out of synonyms, what are our options, really? Sure, being Dior, the vêtements are not crummy per se. But as designs not more expressive than just clothes, even if they are well-executed, can we honestly resist the simple lousy? Dior’s spring/summer 2022 show is high on colour, but why is it so low on excitement? So young, but so without spirit? So sporty, yet so enervated? It can be imagined that many women would find much of the styles “cute”, but how does cuteness really advance the house that, for so long, has been associated with grown-up sophistication?

Ms Chiuri has been described as being at the “apex” of her career. A woman designing for women, a mother with a daughter as “cultural advisor” in the same office, a feminist unafraid to speak her mind, she has the ambassadorial advantage to effect a more design-forward influence. Yet, her output is largely a commercial exercise. It is mostly devoid of wit or flair, superscribed by big hits such as the seen-everywhere (and much copied) Book tote, and pitched for gushing reviews, whether they are truthful or not. Or, for the survival instincts of reviewers such as Suzy Menkes, who gleefully posted on Instagram that Ms Chiuri has “a particular skill in picking out the spirit of the moment”. Wow!

What could this “spirit of the moment” be at Dior for next spring and summer? Immediately discernible is the throw-back to the ’60s, with a go at the colour wheel. There are mini-skirts, complete with go-go boots, and whatever screaming girls used to wear when they thronged to meet their idol-band, The Beatles. But the reference point, to be more exact, is Marc Bohan’s Slim-Line collection of 1961. Youthquake(!), but nothing trembling with newness, let alone innovation. Wait not for the aftershocks for once the season is over, you’ll find it hard to remember any of the pieces. Definitely not those vaguely modish mini this, mini that, the numerous “cute” skirt-suits (some with shorts or culottes), and those ringer-style tank-dresses! Curious is the septet of unflattering separates that seem to mimic boxing wear (like in Milan, there are bras to go with the shirts and shorts, under which are unnecessary skin-coloured base garments), and even more baffling is the white union suit that could have been Baby Gap made for grown-ups. Or, to borrow from Karl Lagerfeld referring to sweatpants in 2013, “a sign of defeat”.

While other houses such as Saint Laurent proudly wear their Frenchness on their sleeves, Dior does not, and is, in fact, becoming more, er, Italian? Or Roma, the place of Ms Chiuri’s birth? Is this her strategy? Seems so. The scenography is conceived by compatriot, Anna Paparatti, considered a key figure in the Roman art scene of the ’60s, who created the set based on the Roman night spot of the same era, Piper Club (which still exists!), thought to be the city’s own Studio 54 back then, while the soundtrack is sung live by the Italian indie electro-pop band II Quadro di Troisi, attempting Italo-disco in considerably lesser beats per minute. What should we take away from all this? Viva Roma?

Photos: Dior