This super, super skinny look is how Paris label Saint Laurent sees men dressing next spring.
So if you want to be fashionable, start dieting now? And here you thought women's shows were the "skinniest."
Hedi Slimane, the designer known for popularizing skinny jeans and suits for both men and women, brought out a very skinny — ^^ THIS SKINNY ^^ — silhouette on some likewise quite slim male models for the spring 2014 show.
These guys appeared much slimmer than your average male runway model. As a result, most of the Saint Laurent models only booked this one show.
The collection, as expected, was very Slimane.
Born of a tempestuous marriage between mods and rockers, these are kids raised on underground indie music.
Michael Jackson vibes, anyone?
The Saint Laurent show was one of if not THE most highly anticipated of the whole spring 2014 mens' show season, which wrapped up in Paris on Sunday. Editors like Anna Wintour (American Vogue), Franca Sozzani (Italian Vogue), and Emmanuelle Alt (French Vogue), already in Paris for the couture collections, made it a point to stop by the Saint Laurent men's show.
The label has been among the most controversial in recent seasons since the hire of Slimane, who is on a mission to infuse the label with a solidly rock-and-roll-driven aesthetic. Any classically ladylike charm his predecessor Stefano Pilati brought to the women's collections has been replaced with fishnets, black eyeliner, slip dresses, and a lot of stuff that's caused a lot of people to either roll their eyes or recoil in disgust. But Hedi is just getting started. And for men, it's now skinny, skinny, skinny.
Yep, still very skinny.
Though don't get your hopes up for GQ editors to spearhead a male model "Health Initiative" or anything like that.
In recent seasons, critics have savaged the rigidity with which Slimane adheres to his retro beanpole aesthetic.
But his consistency seems to have worn the industry down into submission, if not entirely heartfelt post-show applause.
Hedi's going to do Hedi whether you like it or not, basically. So why not get with the program?
Fashion loves itself a rebel with a (sartorial) cause, and four collections into his tenure at Saint Laurent, both Slimane's cause and his effect are clear.
He's carving himself a role as the archetypal bad boy that makes your fashion-following heart flutter (and your credit limit blush), one pair of über-skinny leather pants at a time. You don't come away from a Saint Laurent show with mixed feelings: it's shit or it's the shit, and cussing is fair game because the topic at hand is just that edgy. Either side of the coin is great for Slimane and for the Saint Laurent brand, though, because both represent a strong reaction provoked. What more should a provocateur be doing?