Stefano Pilati YSL.(Yves Saint Laurent)

Byline: Mark Holgate

After Stefano Pilati had been photographed by Steven Meisel for this story with six of his fellow power designers, he repaired to restaurant Da Silvano for lunch with Nicolas Ghesquiere and Marc Jacobs. "I said to Marc and Nicolas, 'Guys, I am the kid here!' " Pilati recalls a few months later. "Even though I am older than Nicolas, he has done seven or eight years' worth of shows-and I've done only one."

But what a year it has been. Pilati may have just two collections under his belt-four, if you include his resort efforts-but he has quickly emerged as a talent of tangible influence. Influence enough to have already defined this season's key silhouette: It was he who, in spring, planted the seed of the tulip skirt, and then watched as it flowered in more than a few other fall collections. Influence enough for The New York Times to do a volte-face, revising their initial negative reaction to his spring show and declaring it to be, instead, a deep wellspring of ideas.

Pilati takes a subdued pleasure in all of this. Typically, given his quiet, modest temperament, he's too busy thinking about where Yves Saint Laurent should go next to waste time reflecting on how others are reacting to what he did last. "I'm my toughest critic," he says. "I've made a start, yes, but there is still more to do. At least I'm mature enough to know that what is good is good, and to accept it, and to feel happy about it."

To dare to follow in the footsteps of Tom Ford and Yves Saint Laurent himself could seem, to some, to be a career move that was bold to the point of folly. But Pilati, who had worked for five years under Ford at YSL, didn't hesitate when asked. "How did it happen?" he asks. "When you're working ...