Anthony Vaccarello, inventive director of Saint Laurent since 2016, is effectively conscious of the distinctive context of this European style season, bulging with a dozen or so huge designer debuts which are certain to win the eye sweepstakes.
Or perhaps not.
“It’s my thirtieth present,” he famous backstage, occurring to elucidate that his strategy was to be as YSL as attainable — in methods delicate and grandiose.
His dusk-hour present, which unfurled throughout an unlimited French backyard set erected on the foot of a scintillating Eiffel Tower, pulsed with the essence of Saint Laurent, which has all the time stood for provocative femininity, right here expressed by a gang of leather-clad feminine Mapplethorpes weaving by the hedges, a troupe of modern Robert Palmer women bare beneath their filmy trenchcoats, and at last, a gaggle of duchesses in misery, racing by in ruffled, puff-sleeved robes.
YSL’s iconic Opium fragrance wafted over the winding rows of white hydrangeas, by the way not the favourite flower of front-row visitor Madonna (Google it). The presence of Betty Catroux and Catherine Deneuve, who arrived on the arm of Jean Paul Gaultier, additionally heightened the sensation of YSL, a witness and bellwether of societal adjustments because the ’60s.
Drone photos of the set revealed that the hedges had been organized within the form of an enormous Cassandre emblem. Wow.
“I feel it’s good to hammer dwelling the purpose that, ‘Oh là là, you might be at Saint Laurent,’ and you allow this present realizing you couldn’t have been wherever else,” Vaccarello stated.
This sensational present will even be remembered for its meaty leather-based jackets, its equally meaty white cotton poplin blouses with low-slung pussy bows, and for the vaporous nylons Vaccarello employed for his high-neck trenchcoats, filmy safari attire and people theatrical Belle Époque robes. He stated they may very well be rolled up and tucked right into a zippered pouch like a windbreaker.
Vaccarello stated he not too long ago got here throughout a interview with Françoise Giroud, France’s minister of tradition within the ’70s, by which she described the YSL lady as louche by day, countess by evening. It caught in his head.
Therefore his interpretation of ’80s leather-based daddies cruising for intercourse within the Tuileries after darkish as an excessive type of powerful stylish, expressed through strict leather-based pencil skirts, killer biker jackets and balloon-sleeved blousons.
One other current Vaccarello discovery was the costumes the legendary founder designed for the likes of Nan Kempner, Hélène Rochas and Jane Birkin for the Proust ball in 1971, organized by Marie-Hélène de Rothschild.
His thoughts additionally went to “Queen Margo,” one in every of his favourite Isabel Adjani movies, set in Sixteenth-century France.
He stated this was the primary time he had tackled the historic aspect of the Saint Laurent archive, which he feels is inexhaustible.
“I really feel like I nonetheless need to inform tales,” he mused. “It’s a home the place there’s a lot to say.”
