Saint Laurent to Return to Haute Couture — for Men and Women

Photos: British Vogue

Yves Saint Laurent -- or Saint Laurent Paris, depending on how you feel that day -- hasn't showed a couture collection since 2002, shortly before the house's founder retired. Now creative director Hedi Slimane is classing up the joint with haute couture designed for both men and women.

"These couture pieces may be women or men, a tuxedo or an evening dress, daywear or eveningwear," the company said in a statement this morning.

Slimane has shaken up the YSL brand since taking over in 2012, almost immediately taking it back to its origins with an official name change. It's not clear whether YSL will show a couture collection or just create bespoke pieces for their elite clientele.

We do know, however, that Slimane is taking his couture seriously, producing the pieces in the label's new atelier inside a 17th century mansion. According to Vogue UK:

The...Hotel de Senecterre, will house three separate areas: the Salon Couture, where clients will try the pieces; the Atelier Flou, for dressmaking; and the Atelier Tailleur, for tailoring, in order to facilitate the new venture, and boasts a "geometric garden" pioneered by Slimane, as well as furniture and art from both his own and the house's private collections.

Among other fancy and/or shmancy touches, the private atelier label will be made of ivory silk satin with a "strict record of all the couture pieces [kept] in a gold monogram book."

Mon. Saint Laurent would approve. Or, if his recent biopic taught me anything, he'd side-eye the hell out of everything and everyone in a five mile radius, flip his hair and walk away. In the language of fashion, that's all you can really hope for.

Les Fabian Brathwaite -- putting the ho back in haute couture.