California grunge was the inspiration for Hedi Slimane's second women's collection for Saint Laurent. Though the huge banners outside the Grand Palais still proclaimed "YSL" in the old typeface, that is more likely to be one last wrinkle of the past on the list to be ironed out, rather than an oversight on the part of a man whose yen for control is legend—to the point where you might almost think the stifling heat of the venue was his way to establish an ambience (an afternoon on Venice Beach, perhaps?). But there was no job on the line, no sense of present danger, with Slimane's collection today. And with regards to that adjustment, there was no expert skirting of nostalgia. 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. At the odd moments when he allowed it to happen—as in a cutaway jacket over a plaid shirt over slashed black leather cuissardes—there was a glimpse of the kind of rigorous sensibility that hybridized passion and fashion into an irresistible force at Dior Homme.