Style Watch

DESIGN NEWS AND EVENTS
Yves Saint Laurent’s New Look
if you want to know what a brand stands for, look at its stores. Or so goes the conventional thinking. Since the early 1990s, the shift, particularly in the U.S., from designers selling to retailers to stocking their own directly operated stores has changed the face of the shopping landscape. Some of the world’s greatest architects are now designing stores. Rem Koolhaas, who won architecture’s Nobel Prize equivalent last year, the Pritzker, is conceptualizing the New York Prada store, which sits beneath the Soho Guggenheim Museum. Christian de Portzamparc, who won the Pritzker in 1994, designed the LVMH tower on New York’s 57th Street. So when Gucci took over Yves Saint Laurent, creative director Tom Ford knew that the first task was to bring the brand’s stores up to world-class par. Ford, who designed the Gucci stores with the help of William Sofield, enlisted Sofield’s help for YSL. The first prototype opened in December in the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas. The second, shown here, opened at the South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, California last month. But these stores are still works-in-progress. This fall, Ford’s Saint Laurent stores will go head-to-head with the vanity projects of his competitors. The YSL store on Madison Avenue and 71st Street will be the first to feature the finished look.

SEEN ON THE STREET
The Anti-Baguette
It was only a matter of time before the baguette — the sweet little purse that came covered in jewels or made of fur, denim or cashmere and hung beneath the armpits of the world’s most fashionable women — had to die. After all, they were allowed to live much longer than the laws of fashion usually allow. More than a season? Quelle horreur! Planned obsolescence is all well and good until something so perfect arrives on the scene — think of the pashmina. But now, the baguette’s sell-by date has come. And to take its place is a tough-looking rival that could eat the baguette for breakfast. The new bag of the moment is made of black leather and covered in non-precious metal studs. It’s more than just part of the punk revival seen on runways for spring. It’s an announcement that, for the moment anyway, bags aren’t nice anymore. It should come as no surprise that the company responsible for the new bully bag is the same that created its pretty predecessor — Fendi. Let the sales continue.

FROM THE TRADE SHOWS
Watching Hermès
Globalization means more than just a McDonald’s on every corner. It means a world of disoriented businessmen trying to find their way around Prague, Hong Kong and Düsseldorf all in the same week. It’s likely they, not the renegades who are trying to paddle a dinghy across the Atlantic, are the ones most likely to fall for the Nomade compass watch Hermès introduced at the Basel watch fair last month. A perfect target might include the American editor of a European business magazine who, frustrated with the lack of a New York-style grid system for streets in London, has taken to carrying a compass to find his way around town. Now he can look slightly less conspicuous standing on Piccadilly trying to find Regent Street. Hermès cleverly found a way to hide a compass beneath the watch’s stainless steel face. It’s the second recent hit for Hermès, which has been making straps since the 1920s. In 1999 a double wrap strap became a fetish for fashion editors. A new version will debut this fall.