Saint Laurent at Paris fashion week: What did the critics say?

Hedi Slimane's Saint Laurent show at Paris fashion week. Photograph: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters

Jess Cartner-Morley, the Guardian's fashion editor, applauded the controversial choice of grunge as a much-needed brand-change the legendary fashion house had been striving for, while still keeping in the ethos of Yves Saint Laurent:

"Slimane delivered the punch that was expected of him – albeit a fashionable six months late. Yves Saint Laurent himself was a rebel within the fashion industry. For Slimane to alight upon an era in which YSL has no particular relevance is, therefore, perhaps in keeping with the spirit of the house. There was a bold energy and a youthful iconoclasm to this collection … In California, where Slimane lives and to where he has moved the design studio, nineties grunge is a deeply felt part of everyday folklore; but in Paris, it is an abstract concept."

Hedi Slimane's Saint Laurent show at Paris fashion week. Photograph: Ian Langsdon/EPA

The Cut's Stella Bugbee thought the dishevelled styling was a sharp move, and commended Slimane's assertiveness:

"The message was literally loud, clear, and confident: Anyone expecting something 'more traditionally YSL' can piss off. Hedi has firmly asserted himself at the house. He's doing Hedi, and that's okay. This is a lifestyle brand for musicians and those who want to hang out with them"

Rebecca Lowthorpe at Elle saw the California grunge collection as of its time:

"Just as Yves Saint Laurent tapped into the mood of the moment, reflected the shifts in women's independence and liberation – with the trouser suit, leather jacket and many more, all of which were shockingly new at the time – was Slimane not reflecting the current status quo?"

Hedi Slimane's Saint Laurent show at Paris fashion week. Photograph: Gonzalo Fuentes/Reuters

WWD.com reported that the "use of expensive clothes to achieve a deliberately down-market attitude" is evidence of Saint Laurent aiming at a younger audience, but questioned if such a gamble could contend with the big players, asking:

"Is playing a cutesy, disaffected-youth hand enough to propel the house of Saint Laurent into today's luxury stratosphere – especially if the targeted air space is that in which Chanel and Dior reside?"

Susannah Frankel, writing for Grazia, thought the show exhibited youthfulness but still retained appeal for Saint Laurent's established audience:

"The core Saint Laurent customer, meanwhile, may not quite be ready for an indecent hem line … but she'll cut quite a dash in a beautifully cut Nappa trench coat"

Melanie Rickey thought the show was far from original:

My @ysl verdict. My 17 yr old stepdaughter had a party Sat night and the girls looked like this, but happier. My other verdict: The Kooples

— Melanie Rickey (@fashedatlarge) March 4, 2013

Writing for vogue.com, Hamish Bowles complimented the presentation but thought the collection left the audience hanging:

"It was certainly a bravura exercise in styling … but one longed for a few more design twists on the Yves borrowings."

Bowles also made comparisons with the work of the house's original designer:

"[Yves'] work was always shot through with innate class, and this collection – doubtless luxurious in the hand and elegantly merchandised in the showroom – looked at times a little too contemporary market on the runway."

Tim Blanks at style.com, while suggesting that many people on the frow weren't troubled by the collection's nostalgia, was concerned by the the lack of anything really new.

"Almost nothing looked new. Which didn't trouble Alexandra Richards, Alison Mosshart, and Sky Ferreira in the least. Such dream clients were all thrilled by what they'd seen. "That's the way I dress anyway," was their party line on the baby dolls, the schoolgirl slips, the vintage florals, the random mash-ups of sloppy cardigans, plaid shirts, and sparkly dresses accessorized with ironic strings of pearls and black bows, fishnets and biker boots. All well and good, and money in the bank for retailers etc., etc., but anyone expecting the frisson of the future that Slimane once provided would have to feel let down yet again."

The best reaction of the night was surely from the collection's muse Courtney Love, who publicly tweeted her approval – direct to the man of the hour:

@hedislimanetwithaving gasms at the idea of rich ladies buying what we used to wear, finally someone got the actual look exact, no beanies

— Courtney Love Cobain (@Courtney) March 5, 2013

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Stella McCartney gets straight to the point in Paris show

Stella McCartney's autumn-winter 2013 collection hits the catwalk during Paris fashion week. Photograph: Alfred/SIPA/Rex Features

Stella McCartney is the type of person to get straight to the point.

The power play between masculine and feminine codes in fashion, territory the British designer has always prowled, has been a recurring theme of this fashion season. So at her Paris Opera house catwalk show, McCartney cut to the chase.

The first outfit was a double-breasted pinstripe suit, the traditional uniform of the gentleman's club and of the most male-dominated workplaces. But into the skirt was inserted an extra circular swirl of fabric which gave a soft, swaying movement as it moved; double-sided stretch material hugged the waist to give the jacket a curving silhouette.

"I didn't just want to take feminine elements and stick them on to a masculine silhouette," McCartney said backstage after the show, "Because that's not how it works. I believe all women have a masculine side to their personality, but that it comes from within them. It's about inner strength, not about surface. So I wanted the flicks and kicks that represent femininity to come from within the pinstripe, rather than be an afterthought.

"A collection is always about an emotion, rather than a look."

"Feistiness?", suggested one reporter. McCartney, precise in all things, shook her head. "No, it's not feisty exactly. That's too aggressive. It's more about an inner strength that runs beneath femininity."

One of the designer's first internships was at Christian Lacroix, the most lavishly flounced and ribboned of Parisian houses, another was with a Savile Row tailor, and both aesthetics run through her label.

Notwithstanding some Stella classics – the grey wool sweater dress, this season with black lace inserts; the coloured coat, this season in deep violet – the centre of gravity of this label continues to shift towards eveningwear. The label has a growing presence on the red carpet, and the modern approach that has won McCartney celebrity fans is bringing in paying customers also.

The designer recently noted that eveningwear can be tricky as much of it tends to be either prematurely ageing, or inappropriately over-youthful. Having identified a gap in the market for eveningwear which is neither deadly sober nor absurdly whimsical, she is making clothes to fill it.

And eveningwear was a highlight of this show, with softly gathered silk dresses in the strapless silhouette enjoying a renaissance led by Raf Simons at Dior, and smartly tailored cocktail pieces with lapel detailing borrowed from the traditions of men's tailoring.

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