"Some time ago, Suzy Menkes thundered with composure her «O tempora, o mores!» against the world of fashion that was throwing to the winds the untouchable caste status reserved for the few who really mean it.
A multitude of supporters of her article has struggled to spread it in the web galaxy until it became almost a manifesto. Actually there were few critics.
The oddest thing is that among those who agreed with Menkes were defendants in the aforementioned article, guilty of the wreck. Needless to say, it is as if at this point a kind of anarchy has been ratified: times have changed, everyone does as they wish.
Paradoxically, however, even anarchy has its own rules, more than ever in fashion, where it takes less than a second to make the tradition of rebellion.
As evidence of this, just yesterday Hedi Slimane has presented his collection for Saint Laurent penning his own way to break with the style of the house, of which he is the creative director. Unfortunately, the attempt has clearly gone in vain. As we said before, the willingness to disregard codes and rules is not enough to be able to do it. You have to create new ones or at least to leave the impression that you can let create new ones.
Slimane preferred instead a kind of lazy recycling, a total deja-vu, which left in our eyes the look of a brisk practice. When you "inherit" a fashion house you are at the head of a very complicated task. Especially now that (in the words of the Menkes) there's so little of Maison and so much of business. You are literally between a rock and a hard place, and freedom of expression is constantly forced to compromise, not only by the weight of the «archive».
Slimane has created over the years a huge entourage of fans, so that every performance (even disconnected from creating clothes) had a large number of supporters. It will not be difficult to bring them along his own new paths. However, remains the chagrin of a missed opportunity.
This very long Parisian week then put the final stamp on the arrogance of all fashion blogger- universe world engaged in finding a common thread, a definition of trends and styles. They forget, however, that they are all involved in the creation/production process by now: they are the defendants in Suzy Menkes' article, both innocent and guilty. Winners at times, but more often beaten."
Marino Bombini
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