Bring it on, 2023. OK, I say that, but let’s put a few conditions on that statement, fashion-wise at least. Bring it on by all means, but maybe without the recent penchant for brutal trends, microtrends, or trends with absolutely any prefix at all. Don’t know about you, but the eye—my eye, I am talking about here—is being drawn to, and is staying fixed on, clothes which carry some resonance of longevity, of non-disposability, and of joy from their creation and making. I have absolutely no evidence for this statement, to be totally honest, but I am thinking that Anthony Vaccarello of Saint Laurent might be feeling the exact same way.
I am basing this statement on the strength of his (and by that I mean: very strong) spring 2023 collection. The familiar made new, the new made familiar, and in a palette that’s the definition of classic—ivory, sand, gold, earth brown, and black, with the occasional splashes of teal blue, burnt orange, and blush pink, and all worn with elegant spike-heeled slingbacks or diamanté ankle strap sandals. (Oh, and tons of substantial dark shades. Don’t know why I find this so particularly alluring, but it just is. Then I do come from a generation which wore sunglasses out to nightclubs.)
All the YSL-isms are here, but adjusted because Vaccarello has that ineffable way of remaking their proportions to feel totally right for the moment we’re in: the shoulderline of a smoking given a distinctive jut; pants cut with a killer flare from the knees, a slink in every step; and, Saint Laurent’s eternal columnar evening getting a scissoring to make it resonate with Gen H(ailey Bieber) 24/7, the archetypal slim dress transformed into a crop top and a sinuous skirt. Another YSL-ism of yore got a cool refresh too: the draped cocktailania of Monsieur Saint Laurent’s ’80s and ’90s reinvented into tiny dresses and just as tiny bodysuits. (And a deft reminder of how Vaccarello has been busy putting his own spin on drapery for some time now: Consider those catsuits from a few seasons back, easily as hyper-glam as the most statement-y nighttime looks, only more connected to the here and now.)
For Vaccarello, his spring and fall collections have been the link, the curtain opener or closer, as it were, on his summer and winter shows, and it’s always intriguing to see how the former link and flow into the latter. Spring has plenty of that going on: a trench thrown over an ankle length dress evokes last winter, while the long minimalistic lines of the jersey dresses are a precursor to his big bold shouldered summer. But what resonates here, what gets that eye fixated on the proceedings, is how this collection tackles the twin pillars that the house of YSL was built on, the mid-century couture-era codes of tailleur (tailoring) and flou (anything soft and/or floaty), that are the very guiding principles of French fashion.
Vaccarello gives the collision of those two approaches a very him spin: Gorgeously frothy chiffon dresses, with flouncing hems come with cabans embellished with blowsy blooms, or beaten-up leather bomber jackets. Heritage, tradition, and craft, but handled with a snap and crackle: 2023, that’s the way to bring it on.
