If you can’t go to Hawaii, then where do you go? That was the challenge that Anthony Vaccarello faced when deciding where (and how) to show his spring 2021 collection for Saint Laurent. Plan A had been to show at one of the Pacific Ocean’s idyllic locales, but the harsh reality of COVID confronted Vaccarello, just as it has done everyone else, forcing him to come up with Plan B. Vaccarello’s solution: Present the collection in a dizzyingly fast and breathtakingly choreographed short film, which sweeps across Paris, Beijing, and New York. (And like any movie, has been teased with billboards and posters.) The locations switch from the Sacre Coeur to mega-skyscrapers shadowing the Chinese capital to the Brooklyn Bridge before ending on a pyrotechnic walkway constructed on the sparkling Eiffel Tower, because everything Saint Laurent does always comes back to Paris. It’s a film that leaps around—quite literally.
Joining Vaccarello’s usual cast of rakishly cool/real guys—wearing blousons traced with leafy fronds, hibiscus-print shirts, a new long tunic-y shirting idea that’s a deft proportions shifter, and soft pants tailored to a perfect degree of fluidity, all with rope-strap sandals or basket-weave loafers—are several roof-jumping daredevils. They leap across the gaping chasms between high-rise buildings like you and I might cross the road. Word of warning: If you have even the slightest hint of vertigo (hand raised here) some of the shots, incredible though they are, might have you gripping the edge of your seat to a white-knuckle level.
For all the drama of Vaccarello’s runway presentations—peerlessly matched here by this film, directed by Nathalie Canguilhem—he can be equally subtle and reflective in his approach. Once the movie’s adrenaline rush has passed, it is clear that there was a quiet precision to the choice of locations; they map out the terrible and inexorable way the coronavirus moved around the world. The destinations underscore the point that despite our globally shared pain and confinement, creativity still flourishes, and it can still deliver the promise of better days ahead.
Vaccarello has been performing his own high-wire act with considerable skill and aplomb for Saint Laurent; an understanding that when you take on the house you need to sift through the myth and the fantasy to find the realism that lies beneath. With spring 2021, he remains intent on fine-tuning his garderobe for Saint Laurent. He’s working on the rationale that, he says, “I don’t like the idea of doing a revolutionary wardrobe every season. For me, you can mix this collection with the one I did in Malibu last year or the one I showed overlooking Manhattan in 2018.”
The continuity is represented by the rocker-sharp tailoring of the suits, the spiffed-up glossy army surplus jackets, and the shawl collared blazers, much of them in black or ivory. The newness is to be found in the unexpected color interplays (orange with pink, say); the verdant yet monochromatic floral prints, turning the nostalgia and timelessness of the Hawaiian shirt into a modern urban classic; or the fresh line of those fluid pants. The latter deliver on our newfound need for a constant sense of comfort but without the caving in of going so casual it looks like you’re near the point of giving up.
Vaccarello has absorbed the experiences of what feels like the longest year in recent history, and found a way to reflect it in his clothes. “There’s something about comfort; I’d never really thought of it before,” he says, with a wry laugh. “Maybe it’s the fact that we stayed at home for months, and now when you see people in the streets, mixing a jacket with jogging pants, something of that casual easiness does go back to the collection. It’s about comfort in your own skin. But you have to elevate it. You have to take it forward.”
