Fashion Week: Guerilla Marketing: A New Frontier for YSL

I had dinner last night with the Queen of the fashion bloggers, Julie Frederickson. Upon leaving Balthazar three young girls tired to thrust folded pamphlets upon us. Now normally I will not take anything someone is trying to give me, assuming that it must be worthless, or worse, that they will want something from me in exchange for whatever it is. But the girls were wearing Ysl t-shirts and, afraid I'd look like a bad blogger in front of Julie, I made an exception.

"What is this?" we asked with suspicion.

"It's pictures of Giselle," one of them said, trying to get away .

"For Yves Saint Laurent?" We said.

They looked at each other. They giggled. They looked a bit nervous. "Yes," they said.

"Why?" we said. (Such journalists!)

They looked even more nervous. They stared at the ground. "It's a new line," one of them said. Two of them wandered away. The other got really chatty.

"We're not supposed to answer any questions. If you talk to us we're supposed to say 'We're not allowed to comment.' Unless it's the police."

And then?

"Then we have a woman .. Kathy.. we have her number"

Like, "take me to your leader??"

"Yes. And ... they, they don't want us to smile. They want us to look mysterious, but I think we look disgruntled."

"But why do they have you handing out pictures of Giselle downtown. Isn't this ... strange?"

"It's a new line. They're targeting a new demographic,"

"They told you that?"

"No. I read it someplace. I don't remember where. We were told to give them to hip, downtown looking people." A rush of joy -- 40 years old, a mother, but, yet, even so still 'hip and downtown!'

"You read? Do they know you are reading?"

Giggles. "I have a degree."

"You do? In what?"

"In marketing and communications. ... Have you looked at these pictures?" She opens pamphlet. "They're really bad. Look! Here she's howling at the moon! Here she's biting a tree!"

We look. They are, in fact, awful. So are the clothes. We all agree that if they want to capture a hip downtown crowd, these aren't the clothes to do it.

Julie heads for the subway, I walk off with the marketer. A model walks out of a building as we pass. "Look," I say. "She's hip and downtown."

She looks. Looks away. "That type isn't interested."