Weighed down by his own snobbery, Yves Saint Laurent retired this week, Reuters reports. “‘I have nothing in common with this new world of fashion, which has been reduced to mere window-dressing. Elegance and beauty have been banished,’ Saint Laurent, 65, was quoted by the weekly Paris Match magazine as saying in an exclusive interview.”

Saint Laurent’s departure does not spell the end of the label, which was taken over by Italy’s Gucci group in 1999 in a deal which allowed the designer to retain creative control of the house’s loss-making haute couture division.

Insiders said Saint Laurent took an immediate dislike to the American designer Tom Ford, who took over the label’s ready-to-wear collections, and his team of commercially minded executives.

In other words, Yves Saint Laurent took an immediate dislike to a designer who reminded him that clothes are made so people can wear them, and that there’s nothing inherently evil about selling the clothing to people wishing to be clothed.

Elegance and beauty “banished”? Banished by whom, Yves? Just admit that you’re burned out and step down gracefully. To insist that the current fashion “climate” (sunny but lacy, highs in the mid-to-low corduroy…) has sounded a death knell for the “art” to which you devoted your life, is pretentious and just plain untrue.

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