Yesterday evening, in the frescoed concrete rotunda of the Bourse de Commerce – the art foundation owned by Francois Pinault of Kering — Saint Laurent’s menswear came full circle. In the literal sense, guests were seated on a circular leather sofa, but also because this marked somewhat of a homecoming for the French house, which has chosen to show Anthony Vaccarello’s menswear collections in far-flung locations in recent seasons (LA, Venice, Marrakech, to name a few).
Besides, the mood of this collection couldn’t have been more Parisian. Almost entirely black, the pin-sharp glamour was rooted in the seductive darkness of the French capital, bringing to mind the linchpin to Saint Laurent’s heritage: Helmut Newton’s 1975 photo of an androgynous woman standing in a hazily lit Parisian alleyway, dressed in a Saint Laurent tuxedo, hair slicked back, crisp white cravat, cigarette in hand, and entwined with a model dressed only in black stilettos.
Another 360-degree moment: Just as Yves encouraged a generation of women to borrow from the boys, his modern-day successor Anthony is doing the same in reverse, urging a generation of men to slip into gauzy blouses, silk pussy bows, and wasp-waisted, perpendicular-shoulders suits worn with nothing but plunging masculine décolletage. Calling it gender fluidity would be contrived. It also belies the fact that shaking up what is his-and-hers is a part of the house’s DNA, stretching way back to the 1960s. This season, the binary may be back in terms of brands reverting from their co-ed shows — but androgyny reigns supreme at Saint Laurent. And though the lines between may be blurred, the precision and sharpness with which they are delivered are anything but.
The show opened with a model in a paper-crisp white cotton blouson with an origami-like bowed cravat, tucked into languid wide-leg velvet trousers, hair slicked back, hands in pockets. What followed was a continuation of the long, lean silhouettes that Anthony has made the defining feature of his menswear, uncompromising in their singularity. This time, they came in knitted turtle-necks elongated all the way from the eyes to below the knee, floor-sweeping coats with dramatically wide shoulders, draped silk blouses and ultra-long black trousers, and several twisted jersey hoods that he first showed on women in September, initially borrowing from Yves’ hooded ‘capuches’ from the mid-80s. Those silhouettes are repeated and perfected to leave an indelible impression, unwavering in their directness. It’s the kind of fine-tuned precision that requires enormous confidence and technical prowess to achieve. No gimmicks, no trends — everything is in plain view, measured to the millimetre.
Leaning into a slightly gothic, vampiric mood, it found fans among the three young cast members of Wednesday in the audience. You can understand the appeal to a new generation. We are living in dark times, after all, but with that comes a certain pleasure in revelling in the twilight, resigning to the darkness. Just like that Helmut Newton picture, there is beauty to be found in the shadows. And often, plenty of subversion.
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Images courtesy of Spotlight