Do You Remember the Saint Laurent Betty Bag?

So much of fashion – like, I suppose, so much of life – is about yearning.

Just pure, unadulterated yearning, sometimes innocent, sometimes tinged with a side of sinfulness (which, let’s be honest, heightens the tension tenfold), but never quite sated. We fashion folks thrive off it. In fact, we live for it.

But very rarely is this intense and utterly insatiable sense of longing for a material item – what it’s really about, instead, is an idea: perhaps a version of ourselves that we used to be or a version of ourselves that would’ve existed had we been born in a certain era, or perhaps a person we simply long to be.

“And then,” Greta Gerwig’s character, Brooke, observes with an unnerving precision in Mistress America, “with each passing year, it gets bigger… because the want Handbag CALVIN KLEIN Ck Touch Tote K60K609695 Ck Black BAX possibility is less. Like how each passing year of your life seems faster because it’s a smaller portion of your total life.”

It’s this ability to translate the desire – for endless youth and ceaseless cool – into the everyday – for actual wear and not the mere establishment of it – that I’ve always appreciated in Monsieur Hedi Slimane’s work.

Paper Bag Shorts & Heels in 'Wild' Collection Campaign Marni striped tote bag last week (which, incidentally, was the first foray into fashion for yours truly), it had me thinking about yet another early-Slimane-era Saint Laurent silhouette.

You see, in his “pursuit of the idea of perfecting something apparently simple,” M. Slimane had crafted the perfect shoulder bag—the Betty.

Ain’t Laurent Without Yves?

“He spared us nothing. His collection was a tour de force of bad taste. Good taste may be considered ghastly, but nothing could exceed the horror of this exercise in kitsch.” Alex Fury of The Independent may have accused Slimane of “ripping apart [and] quietly gutting” (Yves) Saint Laurent in his debut collection, but the quote in question actually dates back to a 1971 review by The Guardian of Monsieur Saint Laurent’s scandalizing Scandal collection.

And it wasn’t just the wartime, flea market-feel of the lineup, but also his beatnik days back in Dior, his not-so-subtle nods to drug use via the Opium fragrance, and even the rather explicit Pour Homme campaign the designer himself posed for – that served to keep the fashion folks in fury and furor.

So, Mr. Fury’s fury at Slimane’s Saint Laurent, while a sign of the times, feels exactly like something out of the brand’s playbook to shock and excite.

And shock and excitement were exactly what was missing from Slimane’s predecessor, Stefano Pilati’s vision and visual overabundance of Y’s. As Amanda wrote at the time, “It’s been fun to see how Saint Laurent will incorporate a Y into each of its bags – sometimes it’s a stitched-in piece that overtakes the entire facade, sometimes it’s a giant piece of hardware, sometimes it’s just a demure little luggage tag on an otherwise Y-less design – but the idea was starting to reach the end of its logical cycle, particularly considering the ubiquity of the Cabas ChYc. (Note the capitalized Y.)”

It makes sense, therefore, that Slimane’s first response was to throw the Y(ves) under the bus. In this case, though, it was a rock n’ roll LA youthquake bus laden with grunge girls, biker twinks, and trendy no babies.

And Then Hedi Had the Betty

However, it was apparent from the very first of Slimane’s accessory releases, the Classic Duffle, that Saint Laurent Paris—as renamed in reference to the brand’s original boutique from 1966—was edgy, high-end, and minimal.

x Urs Fischer 2020 pre-owned Monogram shoulder bag Gwyneth Paltrow Trunk mini shoulder bag Grey Pierre Berge’s pointers to heart, “Remember, Yves sent a peacoat out on his first passage for his first runway, not an evening gown.”

Logo All Over Crossbody Bag the Betty – unveiled for Spring 2013 alongside the more widely well-known Marni striped tote bag – that took the idea of a shoulder bag to perfection. Named after the former Chanel model (and muse to both monsieur Yves Saint Laurent and Tom Ford), Betty Catroux, the Betty was simple in theory – a calfskin flap purse with folded, rive gauche squares with reinforced snake-chain straps, also like its predecessor, absent of external branding.

Yet, it was also surprisingly fresh in its execution: clean and sculptural with Slimane’s signature rock n’ roll edge, reimagined in gold, silver, and noir hardware.

While underrated, Betty’s celebrity fan-following wasn’t any less formidable, with Kate Moss, Salma Hayek, Chrissy Teigen, and Céline Dion all seen with their respective versions ranging in leather and suede to pony-hair leopard and whipstitch ostrich (the Betty was also made available in three sizes: a mini, medium, and a more rounded Betty Clous).

Gucci Black 'GG Supreme' Belt Bag pre-owned Trotter half-moon tote bag KARL LAGERFELD monogram-pattern zipped shoulder bag.

The Age of the Archive

snakeskin logo-plaque shoulder bag Toni neutri.

And under his successor Anthony Vaccarello’s design direction, Saint Laurent continues to maintain a somewhat grown-up version of the cosmopolitan bohemianism, with style staples like dramatic blazers, razor-sharp pencil-skirts and, as Paula Goldstein writes, “the type of coats you should wear with a cigarette and scowl outside of a too-cool concert in London” still in the mix.

Yet, it’s ironic to critique Slimane’s chic perversion when the rest of fashion is doing the same. Cathy Horyn noted with her usual acerbic wit, “In terms of design, the clothes held considerably less value than a box of Saint Laurent labels. Without the label attached to them, Mr. Slimane’s grunge dresses wouldn’t attract interest — because they’re not special,” when Mathieu Blazy’s trompe-l’œil leather jeans for Bottega remain so widely lauded.

In fact, Slimane’s staples – glittery, Rumplestiltskin-y heels, tough leather jackets, nineties-inspired baby-doll dresses (that apparently retailed for a whopping $68,000), and Sedgewickian-by-way-of-2014 mini-skirts – brought a sense of lived-in chic of a flea market predilection. They lack the usual sheen of preciousness in a luxury purchase, which is what makes them so wearable.

At the end of the day, the Betty bag falls squarely into that category, endlessly wearable, endlessly versatile, and quintessentially Saint Laurent. Whether you pair it with one of Monsieur Laurent’s original, botoxed-up Le Smoking suits, or you’re smoking on the sidewalk after a wild night, the Betty dangling insouciantly from your shoulders, it’ll take you everywhere and more.

Diesel drawstring fastening backpack.