Monday, June 9, 2014

SAINT LAURENT PARIS INVITATIONS ARTWORK

John Baldessari for Saint Laurent Collection XI, March 3, 2014






Raymond Pettibon for Saint Laurent Collection X, January 19, 2014






Theodora Allen for Saint Laurent Collection V, March 4, 2013






Brian Roettinger for Saint Laurent Collection IV, January 20, 2013






Matt Connors for Saint Laurent Collection VII, June 30, 2013





Hedi Slimane’s growing series of invitation booklets for SAINT LAURENT encapsulates the designer’s goal to mutate the contemporary culture of Los Angeles with Parisian haute tradition and craft. Each book is around 100 pages, perfect-bound between a black notebook cover, and designed by a different LA-based artist. And as veritable art editions disguised as invitations, they are also the strongest overlooked element of the Saint Laurent hype machinery—small monuments to ephemeral, one-off events.

The contributing artists range from the canonical—John Baldessari and Raymond Pettibon—to the emerging—Theodora Allen—to the bygone—Guy de Cointet—creating a catalog of Slimane’s creative relationships that is as informal and open ended as it is stylistically magnetic. These are the printed-matter prototypes for Slimane’s newfound leadership of the established brand. Designed as complex, sentimental, and, perhaps most significantly, disconnected entrance points into a singular aesthetic world, they are smart decoys for a company that foremost sells ready-to-wear.                                                                                              via 032c.com



Friday, June 6, 2014