The Music Project

Saint Laurent Paris references the house’s long-term relationship with rock icons. The cast this time includes Kim Gordon, Ariel Pink, Courtney Love, and Marilyn Manson. The four styled themselves in pieces from the Saint Laurent collections. Each portrait was shot by Hedi Slimane, in various locations from New York to Los Angeles.

Haute Couture Revival

Dior

At present  haute couture is the most modern way to dress because it's very individual," says Pier Paolo Piccioli, who with Maria Grazia Chiuri designs Valentino's ethereal gowns. "It's like customizing your life; it means uniqueness."

The current state of couture has emerged from the ashes of economic turmoil. "Couture seems more relevant now than it was in the boom years," says designer Donatella Versace, who this season returned Atelier Versace to the official couture runway after eight years of low-key presentations. "The global downturn has made people think about the value of things. Couture may be expensive, but as a reflection of the designer's art, and as an expression of pure creativity in fashion, it is unsurpassed."

This evokes a culture very different from that of traditional haute couture: wealthy socialites in grand dresses from designers such as Jeanne Lanvin and Christian Dior. For many years, that's certainly what it was. Now, they stand in stark contrast to the discreet shopper of today, it's difficult to find women who so openly display their membership to the couture club.

Couture seemed to hit rock bottom in the middle of the last decade, when Christian Lacroix, Yves Saint Laurent, Emanuel Ungaro, and Balmain all showed their last collections. For the labels that remained, couture became a way to stand out amid the clutter of hundreds of ready-to-wear lines. For the likes of Dior, Valentino, and Chanel—which all typically reserved a sky's-the-limit budget both for dramatic staging and the collections themselves.

As haute couture undergoes the process of revival once more, its insular and quintessentially Parisian nature is changing. Perhaps it's only fitting for what appears to be couture's ever more global future.

reference: WSJ

Yves Saint Laurent to be Rebranded

Hedi Slimane for Saint Laurent Paris

Yves Saint Laurent has confirmed they will drop the 'Yves' from their name

The fashion house will be rebranded Saint Laurent Paris, though the iconic YSL logo will still be the same. This shift is not completely new, majority of luxury fashion houses go by a singular surname - Versace, Gucci, Chanel, Prada and many more.

Newly-appointed creative director Hedi Slimane is eager to "thrust Saint Laurent into a new era modern", and feels taking out the founder of the brand's first name from the famous moniker is the way forward.

Slimane, when he was appointed - the former creative director of Dior Homme - was given "total creative responsibility for the brand image and all its collections" and is said to be "recapturing the impulses that inspired the founder to launch the Saint Laurent Rive Gauche ready-to-wear line in 1966 - among them youth, freedom and modernity."