Alexander McQueen menswear s/s 2007
Yves Saint Laurent menswear f/w 2012
Stefano Pilati’s last menswear show for Yves Saint Laurent focused on power’s fashion-friendly handmaidens: sex and money. Pilati managed to weave his themes into the heritage of the house. Back in the days when sex ruled the underground, it was, according to Pilati, more powerful than money. Now there’s no more underground, but there are still photos of Saint Laurent in the seventies, looking and feeling transgressive in his big black coat. So that was where Pilati took his collection.
The setting he created was the place where sex and money came to play—the art world. A huge Twombly-esque chalkboard backdrop was actually a smudgy transcript of a Warhol interview. The staticky electronica of Scanner on the soundtrack was collaged with art-world legend Sam Wagstaff discussing the mechanics of collecting. And the style of Wagstaff’s boyfriend, the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, slowly insinuated itself into the show.
- Tim Blanks
