YSL Protege May Become Head of House

He’s being called Yves Saint Laurent’s protege. Robert Merloz, 24, caught the eye of the fashion press last winter with his first collection of furs for Saint Laurent. Now the Paris-born designer says of the attention it brought him: “I’m shy. I can’t hide it. It’s overwhelming.”

Merloz, an assistant to Saint Laurent for almost three years, made his debut for the house with the 114-piece collection.

Now, rumors abound that Merloz is the heir apparent and will take over all design duties when Saint Laurent retires.

It was Pierre Berge, Saint Laurent chairman, who discovered the new talent. Five years ago, when Merloz was a student at the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture fashion school, Berge saw his sketches and immediately offered him an apprenticeship. He was asked to stay on after graduation to help with the ready-to-wear collections.

“When I was asked to do the furs, I was very excited,” Merloz said. “Everything was a discovery, like a research project.”

This first collection featured coats, jackets and wraps that appeared as malleable as fabric. “The objective was suppleness,” Merloz said after the show.

He is very aware of the controversy surrounding real fur, and the strength of the animal rights movement. “I go along with it, to the extent that I would never use the skins of wild animals--only animals raised for their skins,” he said. “But I do feel strongly that, if a woman wants to wear a fur coat, that should be her choice.”

Working closely with Saint Laurent has influenced his style; there were echoes of YSL in many of Merloz’s coats and jackets. But the latter’s own personality emerged in the softer shoulder silhouette, the short coats with shirttails and the jewel-studded fur hoods. Other Merloz-isms: a black mink short coat lined in shaved red mink and worn with red and black lace-trimmed lingerie, and a chinchilla blouson knotted at the hips with a wide satin ribbon and worn over a black satin teddy dripping with gray lace.

Tall and boyishly thin, dressed in his navy blazer and gray flannel trousers, a mop of black curls descending low on his forehead, Merloz looks more like an British schoolboy than the fashion creator he has grown up to be.