THE THIRD PROTOCOL

The legendary feud between two geniuses of French Fashion, Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld, that has been so well recounted in the book “The Beautiful Fall” by author Alicia Drake, can be also seen as a constitutive paradigm of the Fashion business during the XX Century.

The two notorious enemies, in fact represented two opposite business models facing each other: Yves Saint Laurent was the refined and provocative creator who founded his eponymous label literally dressing the Seventies; whilst the other, Karl, was and still is a proper designer who gives the best of himself when designing for established brands that do not go under his name, for example, Chloé, Fendi and, of course, Chanel.

Whilst Yves Saint Laurent’s style was so radically personal, Karl Lagerfeld has always had the ability of adapting to the brand he worked for, moulding himself to its heritage, stile and history. Lagerfeld’s Chanel has unquestionably been a success in terms of business and has always been faithful to what Gabrielle had invented decades before, in terms of both, iconic designs and ideal client. In other words, we can say that Karl and Gabrielle have designed for the same type of woman: elegant, dynamic, modern and rich.

Whilst YSL has ruled over the Seventies and subsequently met a slow decline in terms of popularity (not in terms of genius), Karl has little by little increased his importance and influence, without ever forcing his personal style over the brands he worked for but, on the contrary, providing an interpretation of how the heritage of the brand could adapt to its contemporaneity.

With the XXI Century, fashion has witnessed the introduction of a third type of designer: the one who, sometimes, does not have an eponymous label, but gets hired by third parties, imposing his own vision and style, obliterating the heritage and, of course, changing the identity of the brand’s ideal client.

This type of designer is always “cool” and that is usually the reason why brands hire him. No other era could be more favourable to this type of creator than the current one, which requires a constant production of ideas and very short memory. The compulsion towards Amnesia which dominates the current times, indeed, it’s pivotal to the success of these designers because they can be fully prised only in a world that forgets the past, the heritage, and even the founder of a brand.

The epitome of this model is Hedi Slimane. Slimane does the same thing everywhere: rock’n roll; skinny trousers; wasted, anorexic, beauties reminiscent of drugs of all sorts; and bad-boys coolness everywhere. Dior Homme, Saint Laurent, and today Céline- promptly re-baptised Celine- for him where just non-places where he could display his own vision. The only certain thing is that he has completely achieved his goal, even if that meant wiping away the past; even if Saint Laurent, with him, had to drop Yves. It is in fact interesting to note that when Slimane left the brand has been replaced with Vaccarello who carries on with Slimane’s style, rather than the founder’s: such is the amount of disruption that Slimane brought into the French Maison.

No brand could be furthest from him than Céline, and yet he has been asked to take over after the glorious era of Ms Phoebe Philo. He bravely accepted the challenge but quite “lazily” -if not cowardly- he relied on his usual style, as if the brand didn’t have a past and a faithful clientele and a heritage.

Now, just to be clear, we are not criticising Slimane’s the ability to revamp a brand, neither we think he is less than amazing at creating fashion. What is here discussed is the business model, not the designer.

A similar thing can be said for Demna Gvasalia, who carries on making Vetements at Balenciaga; or the luckily forgotten (but still un-forgiven) Alexander Wang’s hyphen, again, at Balenciaga, where he continued with his body-con sporty dresses so perfectly newyorkese but so alien to Paris fashion.

This third protocol of designers may be due to multiple reasons, one of which is probably that today’s fashion is dominated by tycoons and big conglomerates which, following the logic of profit, go for “safe” choices, by putting long established brands in the hands of “cool” designers who have already a specific style and asking them to bring it to the Maison.

Anyway, rather than looking melancholically at past models and glamourous feuds, I stay still, sitting at my desk, observing what happens and waiting for the birth of a fourth protocol and another business revolution.