FASHION Magazine

See the Saint Laurent Sunglasses collection »

With the rise in popularly of its newly released duffle (it’s been spotted on the arms of Beyoncé, Gwyneth Paltrow and Kate Moss to name a few), Saint Laurent Paris will add to its range of covetable accessories with its first sunglasses collection under the new branding.

Under the direction of Hedi Slimane, who has helmed the label since March 2012, Saint Laurent has since been striving for a more understated elegance and discreet branding in comparison to former creative Stefano Pilati, whose elaborate designs were credited with bringing the house’s accessories to the forefront of the It bag cult.

The sunglasses collection features a range of styles in Slimane’s signature black, with rosegold, gold and black acetate frame tints. They will no doubt fit into the new creative director’s streamlined aesthetic along with the bags. Simple, sleek and the perfect offset to Slimane’s grunge heavy Fall 2013 collection, the sunglasses will must haves come next season.

When it comes to collaborations, it seems like we’ve seen it all. The over-saturation of these fast fashion moments hardly allows us enough time to digest one limited-edition collection before our attention is pushed towards another. We’d say we were over the thrill, but that would probably be a lie. Especially with the refreshingly new kind of collaboration starting to emerge: that of the designer/musician collab. Though the musician half of the partnership rarely has experience in the fashion industry, there is something incredibly exciting about these strategic alliances. When the worlds of fashion and music collide, as we’ve seen happen with Beyonce’s latest collection for H&M, the media buzz is unbeatable. Designers and musicians tend to identify each other’s creative values, so why not work together?

Fashion favourite Hedi Slimane of Saint Laurent Paris has traded in models for musicians with the Saint Laurent Music Project, a portrait series inspired by the relationship between music and classic YSL. French duo Daft Punk, who mixed Slimane’s spring womenswear runway soundtrack, is the latest addition to the series. The designer also shot the dapper set’s June 2013 cover for Dazed & Confused. Slimane reaffirmed his ability to mold contemporary music through his recent collaboration with Canadian mixstress of the moment, Claire Boucher aka. Grimes. The two recently produced a collection of illustrated men’s T-shirts, influence by vintage YSL love posters. Grimes, who doubles as a talented illustrator, inked the five T-shirt designs herself (they’re currently available on ssense.com).

By Randi Bergman and Meredith Gillies

2012 has been quite the year. We’ve waited for Carly Rae Jepsen’s phone to ring since what feels like forever, we developed major girl crushes on Girls director/writer, Lena Dunham, and we felt like we’d never be as cool as Azealia Banks. Jepsen, Banks and Dunham may have rocked our worlds this year, but in the world of fashion, important things that have gone down too. There have been soaring highs, crashing lows, and shocking changes for celebrities, designers and even journalists.

Designer shifts at Balenciaga and Dior that are just a sampling of what seems like an endless list of fashion shakeups that went down over the past 12 months including Stefano Pilati and Hedi Slimane at Yves Saint Laurent, YSL becoming simple Saint Laurent Paris and more. And speaking of shakeups, Kristen Stewart’s rise from a teen queen to a heartbreaking fragrance face has been epic to say the least. So let’s look back, reflect, and count down together the events that made 2012 so real.

See our list of 2012’s top influencers »

Lady Gaga is no stranger to wearing designer wears, and it looks as though she couldn’t even wait a week to try on some of Hedi Slimane’s debut creations for Saint Laurent Paris.

The designer showed his much talked about Spring 2013 collection last Monday during Paris Fashion Week, and although it’s received much flak in the industry, Lady Gaga seems to be on Team Hedi, as the first to have worn pieces from his collection literally straight off the runway.

Check out our front row pictures from Spring 2013 Fashion Week! »

Front row seating at the Spring 2013 Fashion Week collections has been an exciting who’s-who jumble of predictable favourites and amazing surprises this year.

Miu Miu’s Spring 2013 collection was presented today in Paris, with Glee’s Dianna Agron front and centre of the It girl mélage that came to check out Miuccia’s latest creations. Looking quite mod, she wore a ‘60s look of a turquoise dress, blue heels and purple tights, all by Miu Miu. Dianna Agron was seen with actress Amanda Seyfried who was wearing a Prada suit, Emma Stone and Felicity Jones both in Miu Miu and fashion week fixture and designer herself Chloë Sevigny. The girls looked like they were about star in the brand’s latest campaign, although Sevigny can already boast about that.

The claws have come out in the battle of Hedi Slimane vs. Cathy Horyn. After making his guestlist, and checking it twice, Slimane chose to exclude The New York Times critic from his debut collection for Saint Laurent. WWD was quick to point out the fact that Cathy Horyn was missing from the show, and Horyn, who is known for being a bit of a loud mouth—she recently called Oscar De La Renta a hotdog—did not keep quiet about her exclusion from the show.

Horyn wrote her New York Times review based off the photos and cleared the air about her lack of attendance by saying, “I was not invited. Despite positive reviews of his early YSL and Dior collections, as well as a profile, Mr. Slimane objected bitterly to a review I wrote in 2004 — not about him but Raf Simons. Essentially I wrote that without Mr. Simons’s template of slim tailoring and street casting, there would not have been a Hedi Slimane — just as there would never have been a Raf Simons without Helmut Lang. Fashion develops a bit like a genetic line.”

See more pictures from Paris Fashion Week Spring 2013 »

This is an Important Trend Bulletin from Paris. Spring 2013 will be known as the season of the tux. Variations on Le Smoking opened Lanvin, Dior and Givenchy—a major signifier since eveningwear is usually reserved for last part of a show. And you can pretty much bet we’ll be seeing tuxedoes tonight when Hedi Slimane unveils his first collection for the now-renamed Saint Laurent Paris.

After the hate-athon that ensued after Yves Saint Laurent unveiled a photo of its revamped Saint Laurent Paris logo, two fashion heavy-hitters have come to the defense of creative director Hedi Slimane.

Both Karl Lagerfeld and Arizona Muse have given their stamp of approval to the new fuss-free, sans-serif logo, which was pictured atop two black boxes stacked on white marble on the brand’s Facebook page Monday. The logo, which is a nod to the brand’s Rive Gauche era back in the ‘60s, is the exact opposite of the swirly Yves Saint Laurent font that’s been a mainstay for the brand up until this point.

It should come as no surprise that Hedi Slimane’s much talked about collections for Saint Laurent Paris (his revamped moniker for the legendary Yves Saint Laurent) are being kept well under wraps as he prepares for their debut this fall. Fortunately for us, a handful of select retailers were invited to view his first designs […]

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