The opening look of Anthony Vaccarello’s Saint Laurent laid bare exactly what he was thinking of for next fall: an haute bourgeois red tartan double-breasted blazer, gilt-buttoned, velvet-collared, atop a matching jabot neckline blouse, hair swept back, substantial gold and jet earrings, and…black latex trousers so tight they were vying for the position of first skin, let alone second. And there was plenty more where that came from: exquisite jackets, impeccably tailored, mostly double-breasted, many with those same gilded buttons, in ochre cashmere, pearly gray flannel, jaunty navy wool, natty brown houndstooth—and all worn with those same part-club-kid, part-dominatrix, all-gloss pants.
As the show progressed, other elements were introduced. There were fab masculine overcoats falling from squared-off shoulders. Out came a few gorgeously hued (teal, forest green) fluffy feather chubbies. As a variation on the leggings-esque trousers, some strict pencil skirts, which sported slashes from the thigh down and were worn with high-shine long boots. (Those not feeling ready for an adventure in latex would be advised to think about swapping out the pants for the skirts, and wear those with one of Vaccarello’s terrific jackets, to look equally fall 2020; next season, the skirt suit is going to be it.) And to finish it all off, some drop-dead cocktailania, all drape-fronted and hip-cleaving, classically ’80s/’90s YSL, in the likes of ruby velvet or—yep—more latex; one dress, in scarlet, worked to move with the liquidity of the lightest of silks, was a standout.
All of this fetish-gl(e)am contrasting with the strictly buttoned-up was akin to discovering that your Parisienne dowager aunt, should you have one (I don’t), liked to cut loose of an evening by flicking through the writings of the Marquis de Sade. Just to amuse herself. And that she might choose to rest her heels—those in Vaccarello’s show were great; a vertiginous slingback adorned with the kind of buckle beloved of Séverine Serizy—on one of Allen Jones’s ’60s-era kinky coffee tables. It was as if BCBG had gotten all tangled up with BDSM, and how often do you hear that?
Backstage post-show, Vaccarello readily acknowledged the current #MeToo climate, and spoke of celebrating a woman’s power and her own sense of self. Yet he has always been a designer who’s demurred at the oft-lazy tag of “sexy.” For him, it’s not so much “let’s talk about sex” as it is “let’s talk about legs.” Ever since his arrival at Saint Laurent, Vaccarello has endorsed a woman’s right to express her own physicality, and ergo her sexuality, any way she wants. It’s something that, if the way young women the world-over are dressing is anything to go by, has connected both generationally and globally.
What was new was the way Vaccarello chose to riff on the kind of taut yet lush sensuality that Monsieur Saint Laurent was such a master of, twisting it anew by focusing on all those bourgeois gestures in high contrast with his slicked-up leggings. And what else was new, yet very Yves: the uninhibited sense of color, with Vaccarello working his way through the classic YSL palette—fuchsia to purple to emerald to hot pink—and showcasing it his own way through that extremely non-classic latex. After the show, Vaccarello laughed and said he’d only gone so colorful because he was always being told that he only does black, and that it might be a one-season-only excursion. Let’s hope not, when it so readily sprung to life here.
