Daily Front Row

2009 March 10

YSL - Paris Fall 2009

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YSL Fall 2009
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(PARIS) Let's start with the music--lethargic but complex jazz courtesy of Alice Coltrane. After a month-long assault of fashion, the front-row of the gallery-like, Zen-y geometric space at the Palais du Tokyo required a siren song to ease them into a place of proper reflection, which is exactly where this music left its audience. Joyously, Stefano Pilati's Fall collection for YSL did consist exclusively of clothes that deserve to be savored. The first handful of leather looks (a belted trench, a double-breasted jacket with a studded collar, a trim strapless bodysuit) captured Pilati's "emotion pulled taught by restraint," as the liner notes outlined. Pilati took thermal molding techniques (traditionally used in the automotive industry) to bond the linings of washed crêpe de chine and foam with the collection fabrics, giving a sense of heft and texture to these overall sharp shapes. After all the frippery, these clean clothes (a white poplin shirt tied in a flourish at the shoulder, a long cashmere pinstriped jacket with an upturned collar, a sole-heavy and soulful crocodile pump) felt exactly right.