At The Palladium' made its debut, stage-right, late last night in L.A. The event was announced in Kanye Caps earlier last month and got everyone in their Twitter Fingers.
Was this Hedi Slimane’s swan song? And does this mean we have to attend L.A. Fashion Week now? The show was a double whammy: AW16 menswear (which was shockingly moved from the official PFW slot in January) and part one of AW16 womenswear (ahead of the Paris women’s collections). That this was going to be a big ‘un, was also made evident by the fact that the previously empty Instagram account of @ysl went from crickets to signature Slimane black-and-white clips of the angsty ‘Saint Laurent Boy And Girl Crew’ - including Pam Anderson’s son Dylan Lee and the Bleached girls. All everyone knew was: when Hedi beckons, you slide into your chelseas and clammily pray you haven’t been blacklisted because you used the wrong terminology when you Instagrammed the Mitchell Syrop 'Holy Land' invite.
California rock youth culture has always been Hedi’s main source of (th)inspiration - and this show was no exception - but the focus of the 90(!) looks seemed to be the elaborate coats. Fringe brocade bombers, purple and red velvet cowboy jackets with vintage Rive Gauche musical note applications, cropped military and floor grazing capes, gold-streaked mink, marabou pompom-sleeved couture and a striking peak lapel tuxedo jacket with constellation sequin patterning all became one in the legendary Sunset Boulevard theatre.
The pussy bow shirt, also championed by Alessandro Michele’s promising tenure at Gucci, seems to be going nowhere. Non-believers won’t have been turned into remorseful disciples by last-nights celebrity-brimmed showcase but the stunning craftsmanship can only be admired. And you know those capes and sequins spoke to every fiber of my Studio 54 manqué stunt queen soul.
'Saint Laurent At The Palladium’ is also the disheveled tiara on the 10 year anniversary of the 'Hedi Slimane Diary', a photography website that was born in ’06. Saint Laurent calls it ’THE PROTO-FORM OF WHAT WE HAVE NOW IN SCRAPBOOK STYLE SOCIAL MEDIA’. Which is heady Hedi for 'I had a dope Tumblr before any of you'?
No big announcements were made however, so we know ‘why' Slimane moved the show to Hollywood (he set up his studio here and is grafted into the local music scene like nobody’s business), but we still don’t know #WHY. Is he leaving soon? Will he finally start his own namesake brand or fully focus on photography? What will Kering do with all that confused rock-n-roll clientele when he departs? And can someone check on Alber?
