Feminine Singular: How Many Saint Laurent Suits Is Enough for Betty Catroux?
Hello and welcome to the 31st issue of moderated, a newsletter created to dive into insights and phenomenons in the Fashion Industry. It also has a curation and summary of the most talked last week’s events of the industry, offering further readings for more details.
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First of all, sorry for being a day late on the newsletter. I had some technical problems that were already solved and after this week, I am back to normal Tuesdays.
On this week’s moderated, I shared my experience (and pictures taken) at the exhibition dedicated to Betty Catroux held by the Yves Saint Laurent Museum and dived into her life and contributions to the fashion industry.
But before jumping into the main article, check the last week’s recap of the Fashion Industry.
Last Week’s Recap
French Luxury Department Store Printemps to Shut Stores and Cut Jobs
The French department store Printemps was always a magnet for tourists looking to buy luxury products in France. However, the retailer has been suffering from the pandemic’s impact on tourism and retail. Printemps sells luxury make-up, perfumes, and apparel from brands such as Burberry and Gucci and is owned by Qatari investors. Amid the second lockdown in France, the retailer is planning to close four of its 19 department stores, according to CGT. This would put 450 employees’ jobs, or around 15% of Printemps' workforce, at risk. The potential job cuts include shop assistants and staff at the company headquarters.
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Instagram’s New Features: Reel and Shop Tabs
Last week, Instagram released two new updates to its home screen – A reels tab and a Shop tab. The Reels tab is obviously an attempt to keep competing against TikTok. Not that long ago, I wrote an article about how Instagram’s position of being the go-to social media for fashion was being challenged and this new feature is its latter move to maintain its position against its main current competitor TikTok. The Shop tab, however, is probably going to affect even more the fashion industry. This last tab will offer shoppable content and new product collections curated to the user. This was a smart move from Instagram, once shopping has been moving more and more to online platforms since the pandemic started.
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Amazon Hires Former Vogue Editor Sally Singer to a New Fashion Role
A little like Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok, Amazon just hired a former editor to a new role as head of fashion direction. The person filling up this new position at Amazon is Sally Singer, a former Vogue editor. She will report to Amazon Fashion President Christine Beauchamp. Amazon’s decision to create this new position has as a goal to develop its luxury e-commerce business launched in September this year, which is called “Luxury Stores”. The tech giant always had difficulties to succeed in luxury due to its utilitarian interface and lack of curation. With “Luxury Stores”, Amazon is trying to conquer this still unattained market, but so far most luxury brands did not join it.
Rating La Mode - Nicole McLaughlin
This week, I am recommending a DIY (do it yourself) Instagram artist Nicole McLaughlin. McLaughlin has been in the Instagram-kind-of-celebrity scene since 2017. The former Reebok sneaker designer went viral after she reated slippers out of volleyballs and Carhartt scraps. Since then, she created fashion with the most unexpected things you can imagine, my personal favourite being the croissant bra. Her unexpected designs that she posts to her more the 500 thousand Instagram followers go viral often and in 2020 she even collaborated with Crocs to create a limited collection. Her designs are as creative as it gets. As McLaughlin explained to Vogue:
‘How far can you push the limit?’ Sometimes it’s just for fun, to poke fun at fashion, like putting a bunch of pockets on something when it doesn’t really need it.”
You can find Nicole McLaughlin creations at her Instagram account.
Feminine Singular:
How Many Saint Laurent Suits Is Enough for Betty Catroux?
The last day before France went back to full lockdown, I decided to take my chances and visit an exhibition I’ve wanted to see at the Yves Saint Laurent Museum in Paris. I did not have any ticket, but fortunately, by arriving before the Museum was even open, I manage to get in – and I am so thankful I did. Called ‘Feminine Singular’, the exhibition was about Betty Catroux, a long time friend of Yves Saint Laurent and probably the most iconic muse of the brand – I am sorry Misses Catroux, I know you hate this label. So, this week, I decided to share my experience at the exhibition with photos and a review, while at the same time telling you not only the impact of Saint Laurent on Betty Catroux’s wardrobe, but how the it-girl influenced the label’s signature style.
By thw way, all pictures in this article, which are from the exhibition, were taken and edited by me :)
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Who Is Betty Catroux?
For Yves Saint Laurent, Betty Catroux was his female physical double. She incorporates everything the designer and the brand were and are to this day. However, as one of the most iconic it-girls in the fashion world, she is way more. So let’s start at the beginning.
Catroux is probably one of the frenchiest French women you can think of, but surprisingly, she is not French. The it-girl was actually born in Brazil in 1945, and she is the only child of a Brazil-born French socialite and an American diplomat. At 4-year-old, after her mother divorced her then Brazilian husband, Betty Catroux moved to France.
Is no secret Catroux had some rough times during her teenage and young adult years. She was a heavy drinker and used a lot of drugs, which is no surprise when we know she hanged out a lot with Saint Laurent. As she explained to The New York Times:
“I was a bad girl in the sense of doing everything that was forbidden, drinking and, well, you know the rest of the story of Saint Laurent.”
She also states she never had many ambitions. Actually, according to Betty herself, her main ambition was to never lift a finger in her life. Still, at the age of 17, Catroux started her modelling career with her first employer being no one less than Coco Chanel – yes, the designer, who was still alive then. After two years working for Chanel, she left. Then, in 1967 she met Yves Saint Laurent at a gay nightclub in Paris called The New Jimmy’s, and the rest is history…. a history I am about to tell.
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Yves Saint and Betty Catroux Relationship
When both met at the nightclub, Saint Laurent immediately fell in love with Catroux’s androgynous look. At a time when the usual codes of femininity and seductiveness were still very conservative, Betty Catroux stood out with her nonbinary style. Actually, until today, she is considered one of the main symbols of androgynous style and she even has an iconic quote you may have heard around: “Why be the worst girl if you can be the best boy.” Indeed, I feel you, Betty.
"I’ve always been captivated by what’s masculine. Always wore jeans, a man’s jacket… I don’t feel like a girl or a boy, but more in a seductive position when dressed in boy’s clothes," she explained in an interview for Antidote in 2014.
So back to their relationship. After kicking out perfectly, the model and the designer became inseparable friends. She became Saint Laurent female physical double. She was his daily phone call and constant companion. Actually, Betty was the one who accompanied the French designer to rehab at the American Hospital of Paris in Neuilly-sur-Seine.
Saint Laurent was in the early years of his career when he met Catroux and throughout his success, she definitely influenced his label. She was the embodiment of his notion of the feminine ideal. He would design clothes only for her or thinking about her. Her androgynous style inspired his fashion house a lot and her suitpants looks became a signature for Saint Laurent. He also loved how she looked physically, as he said to Women’s Wear Daily in an interview in 1968: "She’s perfect in my clothes. Just what I like. Long, long, long."
As much as they had a lot in common, good and bad things, there was one thing that the two friends saw differently. Yves Saint Laurent was nostalgic, he refuted the past, while Betty Catroux lived for the present. “Yves always thought things were better before, but I love to live with my times,” Ms. Catroux said. “I am not at all nostalgic of the past.”
During all her years as a friend of Yves Saint Laurent, Betty Catroux didn’t have a good relationship with the designer’s former lover, business partner, caretaker, and the progenitor of his myth, Pierre Bergé. Bergé thought she was a bad influence on his partner and he made that clear to her. However, after Yves passed away in 2008, the two became very close.
Finally, Ms. Catroux was a muse, a friend, and a soul twin to Yves Saint Laurent and that relationship lived in the brand beyond his life. Tom Ford dedicated his first Saint Laurent Rive Gauche collection to her. Hedi Slimane cited her when designing menswear. In 2018, Anthony Vaccarello, the current creative director of Saint Laurent, invited the 75 years-old Betty Catroux to be part of an ad campaign that played on her embodiment of the masculine-feminine dualities that first made her famous.
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Feminine Singular Exhibition
Last year, Betty Catroux made a major donation to the Fondation Pierre Bergé - Yves Saint Laurent: a large share of her Saint Laurent closet. This was the largest ever donation the Foundation ever received and according to Ms. Catroux, “It was no sacrifice at all.” She even explained to The New York Times: “I’m only giving back what I was given.”
With this massive donation, the Museé Yves Saint Laurent is devoting a whole exhibition to her. The current artistic director of Saint Laurent Anthony Vaccarello is the one that organised the exhibition by selecting the pieces that most reflected her personality and ongoing influence on the brand.
"She lives and breathes Saint Laurent,” Mr. Vaccarello explained. “Betty likes to say she was the bipolar double of Saint Laurent, which is a chic and elusive way of expressing their twinning. Through her, he was able to give life to his vision. Thanks to him, she was able to become herself.”
The exhibition has approximately 50 Saint Laurent designs. It supposed to last from March to October, but due to the Covid-19 pandemic that resulted in lockdown measures, I am not sure until when it is going (and I don’t think the Museum is so sure too).
The exhibition started with some pictures of Betty Catroux, many of them accompanied by Yves Saint Laurent and other friends and, obviously, all of them wearing YSL. The second part of the exhibition had some magazines in which the it-girl was.
Then, after this beginning, the actual exhibition started: her clothes!
There were some suede dresses and a few back overalls, but I can safely say, the vast majority of the exhibition was made of blazers and trousers, which was her signature androgynous look. All suits had that YSL thing in common, but at the same time completely different. As The New York Times perfectly explained, she had a lot of clothes for someone that always dressed the same. But maybe that was her magic touch - she didn’t care about it.
“Betty does not wake up with this idea of making a statement with an outfit,” Mr. Vaccarello said. “In that way, she is the opposite of what is called an influencer today. She doesn’t calculate the impact of every little thing she wears.”
Betty herself already said she never cared about it or understood this fascination with her. She only dressed how she felt like, which was usually a sophisticated mix of masculine and feminine.
And I need to leave an appreciation note to the fact that every mannequin in the exhibition had Ms. Catroux hair and classic sunglasses. It was a charming touch to the amazing experience. I went to this exhibition because I love Betty Catroux's style and I am obsessed with Saint Laurent. But I left the exhibition with so much more than beauty. I learned so much about this unapologetic fashion icon that paved the way for androgyny in the fashion industry. I hope that, like me, you learned something interesting too.
Thanks for reading this week’s moderated and next Tuesday I will be back with more.
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