YStyle Picks

Bailing on bally

MANILA, Philippines - It’s starting to become difficult to keep up with all the creative director shake-ups that have been happening recently. This week, it involves Swiss fashion house Bally and its two creative directors Graeme Fidler and Micharl Herz who have been with the brand since 2010. According to sources that spoke to WWD, the pair handed in their resignation letters a few months ago and are only expected up until September. With Emma Hill gone at Mulberry, insiders say that the two could be headed there. In the meantime, creative chief and former German GQ editor Manuel Frei has been looking for their replacements, which reportedly include Alexandre Mattiusi, who has his own menswear label and was named the winner of the 24th Andam Fashion Award this year, and John Vizzone, the current senior vice president of Ralph Lauren’s Purple and Black label collections.

Firing back

Remember when everybody seemed to hate New York Times fashion critic Cathy Horyn and Oscar Dela Renta and Hedi Slimane posted scathing open letters for her, questioning her taste and credibility, then Lady Gaga joined the fray, dissing her in song lyrics? It’s been a while since that happened, so it appears the time is ripe for it to happen again. This time, the offending party appears to be Style.com’s Tim Blanks and the offended is French designer Jean Paul Gaultier. In his review of Jean’s fall 2013 couture show, Tim wrote, “a ‘millefeuille de mousselines’ echoed Yves Saint Laurent’s way with color, as a reminder that Gaultier was once considered the one true heir to the throne of French fashion. But that was once upon a time, and that time has, sad to say, well and truly passed.” Apparently, Tim wasn’t the only one — Cathy Horyn and the Independent’s Alexander Fury had similar opinions. But it was Tim alone who experienced the wrath of Gaultier in an open letter he wrote: “In future (sic), rather than be bored at my shows, you can use that time to do something else, for example brush up on your fashion history so you’ll know that ‘mille feuille de mousseline’ didn’t echo Saint Laurent, it was inspired by a Nina Ricci dress from 1967 in homage to Gerard Pipard who recently passed away.” Ooh, burn. We guess Tim isn’t going to be invited to his next show.

Yeezy x A.P.C.

A few weeks ago, we reported rumors on Kanye West’s collaboration with French label A.P.C., but now, we can confirm it: On July 14, Kanye and APC will be releasing a small menswear capsule collection consisting of a hooded jumper, a pair of jeans and a T-shirt. How Kanye and A.P.C. creative director Jean Touitou met is an interesting story. Two years ago, Jean was introduced to a young man named “Kenny.” “He had nice manners and spoke about losing his mother in a surgery accident, about losing his girlfriend too, and about how difficult doing the right thing in fashion was,” Jean told Vogue.co.uk: “After a while, I was curious to know what this gentleman was currently doing in his life. I simply asked him: ‘May I know what your trade is, Sir?’ He took his shades down, so that finally I could see his eyes, and answered me: ‘I am a hip-hop artist.’” It’s no surprise that Kanye knows how to make an introduction, but it is a suprise to know that he actually has manners. “Over the months, we kept hanging out and finally came up with the idea of doing a small capsule collection of clothes together,” Jean concluded. Apparently, when Kanye is a decent human being, he gets what he wants.