Yves Saint Laurent drops the Yves

Yves Saint Laurent is getting a modern makeover, dropping the Yves from French fashion house name under the leadership of new creative director Hedi Slimane, who officially took the title in March. The fashion house will move forward as Saint Laurent but as an official spokeswoman for the brand told Women's Wear Daily (subscription required), will continue operate with the "Yves" for “institutional” purposes (branding, logos).

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Late designer Yves St Laurent with a model outside his Rive Gauche boutique in France in 1966.

The name change is actually a throwback to the past (the '60s to be exact) when the fashion house originally was branded sans the "Yves" and operated as Saint Laurent Rive Gauche. A retrospective to the house's earlier years are said to be a core value for the upcoming Slimane years, who is dedicated to “restoring the house to its truth, purity and essence – and taking it into a new era” while “respecting the original principles and ideals.”

The new branding is expected to make its first physical appearances as Slimane's spring/summer 2013 collection makes its way into stores.

Thoughts? To be perfectly honest, I suspect this change will only add to the youthful accessibility that Slimane will bring to the fashion house if not only for the non-fashion fluent, who may rejoice that the somewhat cumbersome to pronounce Yves is being nixed from the name. (In case you were wondering: it's Eves not Ives.)

Other confusing fashion names or terms?* Rive Gauche? Well I won't leave you hanging (or use the correct phonetic alphabet) but it's REE-V GO-sh.

Say it with me: Sain(t) Lauren(t) REE-v Go-sh.

* Some of the most common fashion term/name mistakes I hear (again, using a non-phonetically correct alphabet):

Marchesa: Mar-Kay-Sa
Givenchy: Gee-Von-She
Herve Leger: Heir-vay Lay-jey
Haute Couture: H-oat Coat-ture
Lanvin: Lauw-vaa