The previous portrait of Anthony Vaccarello posted to the Instagram account
from ‘maison’ Yves Saint Laurent has made way for several teaser posts
hailing the new era of the French fashion house led by the Belgian
designer. The luxury label released six new images and short films which
showcased a very simple and clean aesthetic, paired with a new logo.
Over at the Yves Saint Laurent website and its Youtube Channel several new
teaser clips have been released as well. In order to maintain some mystic
regarding the fashion houses new direction, the majority of the images
focus on the new faces chosen to front the campaign, rather than the
designs themselves,showing the models faces or bare torsos.
The 6 Instagram posts racked up 71
,500 likes within 5 days and the Youtube clips garnered 1,300 hits in 4 days, which would suggest the campaign is nothing short from
a success. However, the majority of the comments left on both social media
channels were not extremely positive. Many of the users left comments such
as #Hedislimaneforever and “take back Hedi”, calling for the return of
former creative director Hedi Slimane. Other users pointed out that the
campaign was very similar to one from Calvin Klein in the 90s and lacked
originality.
Hedi Slimane departure from Yves Saint Laurent was confirmed in April. The
designer left a lasting mark on the brand’s direction during his four year
tenure, which ranged from changing the brands name to Saint Laurent and
changing the style direction of the fashion house. In addition, Slimane was
not only just in charge of overseeing the brand’s fashion design, he took
complete creative control, overseeing editorial, marketing and
communication of the brand’s identity as well. Slimane effect on Yves Saint
Laurent can only be seen in a positive light, as his appointment also saw
company sales raise from 354 million euros in 2011, a year before he was
hired, to over 1 billion euros in 2015.
Shortly after the exit of former creative director Slimane, Yves Saint
Laurent quietly remained all digital traces of his work at the fashion
house from its Instagram account to herald his successor, Anthony
Vaccarello.
However, fans of the designers work will still have to wait a few months, as the first full collection
under the design direction of Vaccarello for Yves Saint Laurent is set to
be presented in October.