Hedi Slimane and Saint Laurent Sever Ties with Parisian Boutique colette

Less than a week after Kanye West aggressively proclaimed his disgust for designer Hedi Slimane, the Saint Laurent creative director once again makes fashion headlines for pulling his design house from colette’s shelves. Rumor has it that Slimane chose to sever ties with the Parisian boutique after discovering it planned on carrying 300 “Ain’t Laurent Without Yves” parody T-shirts for the fall. colette’s creative director Sarah Andelman mentioned it started after Saint Laurent’s commercial director first contacted her requesting the removal of the shirts from the online shop, to which she complied, selling the remainder in-store. Then, on September 25, CEO Francesca Bellettini sent Andelmen a letter “accusing her of selling counterfeit products that ‘seriously damaged’ the YSL brand and confirming the end of their business relationship.” YSL ensued by cancelling the retailer’s entire spring order which would total over $285,000 at wholesale, then uninvited Andelman to the designer’s spring showing in Paris this past Monday. And to add to the madness, Saint Laurent decided to ban the boutique from selling a recent issue of indie magazine Document which covered artist Joe Goode with photography by Mr. Slimane himself. What’s more interesting is that colette sells other parody T-shirts without receiving grief from those design houses and there are a slew of other shops selling the same popular tops alongside YSL, yet we haven’t heard of them receiving a similar retribution. So what do you think readers, is Saint Laurent taking things a little too seriously or does this pairing of high and low fashion really tarnish its image as well as its appeal to customers?