This past February, Anthony Vaccarello showed a stellar Saint Laurent collection of slick, strong-shouldered tailoring and even slicker latex on a runway the color of sun-bleached sand. Maybe the set was meant to evoke the desert landscapes of North Africa, a region the house has long had an association with—Monsieur Saint Laurent was born in Algeria—but it also made one hell of a backdrop for Vaccarello’s radical (and ravishing) reimagining of the classic YSL color palette of emerald, fuchsia, lipstick red, et al. Now 10 life-changing months later, and Vaccarello has returned to the dunes to present summer 2021. More than a neat visual through line between the collections, it’s a link connecting where we were and where we are. I mean, sands of time, anyone?
There’s no elaborate show in Paris this time, though. Instead, it’s a hypnotic film by longtime creative accomplice Nathalie Canguilhem of models walking in a snaking single file across striated sandbanks in…well, who knows where, exactly? On a call with Vaccarello a few days ago, he wasn’t letting on. Suffice to say that the panoramic vista as far as the eye (well, the camera) can see performed a similar trick here as it did in February: an uninterrupted backdrop the better to showcase his new streamlined silhouette. Next summer’s collection is a terrific exercise in chic, but one with a kicker; it’s also surprisingly soft, hard edges rounded off, save for the punk-ish/puckish haircuts of the models. There’s a general air of giving, relaxing, sometimes even playfulness—but nothing too loose. (I mean, come on, this is Vaccarello, who cuts a lean line like no other.)
The months of life in and out of lockdown—le confinément—with the attendant desire for clothes with ease and softness didn’t leave Vaccarello untouched. “With everything that was going on in the world, I wanted something softer, warmer,” he said during that phone call from Paris. “I’ve never really done ‘comfortable’ before.” He found his answer to how to approach it by delving into the YSL archives, alighting in his usual resolutely left-field and non-historicist way on the fluid, pliable jersey dressing that Saint Laurent did in 1968.
As with today, it was another era where the strictures of fashion’s past were being blown away—YSL launched his revolutionary Rive Gauche prêt-à-porter that same year—when people were taking to the streets to protest. Movement met movement. “That jersey...it kept its shape but didn’t constrain,” Vaccarello says. “I wanted to speak to the comfort of the ’60s and to the comfort of today.” The fusion of the two eras—well, three actually; there’s also a healthy dose of the stripped-down late ’90s at work here, more of which later—can be seen in the mix of Vaccarello’s Nehru-collared belted jackets worn with bike shorts (hello, Peloton!), the minimal new suiting of a tunic and pants with a flick at their hems, and the graphic jumpsuits.
All of these are pretty much denuded of any details, save for the accessories that accompany them: a hothouse bloom tied close to the throat via a leather thong (inspired by Fassbinder’s The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant); the new Rider bag, a pristine and precise exercise in luxe functionality, neatly hanging from the shoulder; and, slingback heels—heels, remember them?—their pointed metal-toe claps gleaming and glinting in the brilliant sunshine of wherever it was they went to shoot. The aforementioned ’90s moment arrived in the form of a series of small shrunken jackets worn with oversized pants, which Vaccarello souped up with reissued versions of Claude Lalanne...jewelry isn’t exactly the right term; let’s try body adornment.
Vaccarello’s success here is in answering the more intimate mood of the moment; being able to connect a house whose foundations rest on a particular brand of high-octane cool glamour—a very external expression of self—with our current deep inner need for ease and solace. Even his nods to the ’60s—they also include some very Valley of the Dolls florals and marabou negligee dressing, glorious exercises in kitsch, but just enough; and those geometric updates of the classic Vidal Sassoon five-point cut—aren’t nostalgic rehashes. Instead, it’s a wish to connect that decade’s optimism with his own sense of positivity; a sense that one can start looking again to the future.
And who can blame him? By the time this collection is available to buy, Vaccarello will be celebrating the milestone of his fifth anniversary at the house. “I’m not the guy I was when I first came here,” he said. “I am more sure of myself.” So too it seems is the woman he has in his mind’s eye. “She was maybe more seductive when she started,” he said, “but now she has grown up. She has much less to prove.”
