Saint Laurent (Instagram) isn’t reinventing the wheel — it’s refining it. Again.
For Summer 2026, Anthony Vaccarello continues his ongoing thesis on restraint: same razor-sharp lines, same clean architecture, same unshakable cool. Only this time, the silhouettes breathe a little more. There’s more leg, more air, more silk. Fewer declarations, more decisions.
Set in the Bourse de Commerce beside clinamen, an installation by Céleste Boursier-Mougenot (a circular lake where porcelain bowls bump into each other with no choreography), the show opened like a dream left half-finished. The air was still. The bowls sang. The models glided out in silence, their faces eclipsed by oversized sunglasses — less accessory, more visual censor bar.
The palette was strictly mineral: pale ochre, sand, dry moss, salt. It whispered of Fire Island dunes and Parisian galleries. The tailoring was classic Saint Laurent: shoulders extended, waists cinched, fabric gliding just far enough from the body to feel precise, not precious. There were leather blousons paired with ample skirts, sheer sleeveless tops, stonewashed shorts cut so high they nearly floated. The boys wore pleats. And they wore them well.
What could have been “gender play” felt more like an erasure of the question. The masculine and the feminine weren’t colliding — they were calmly coexisting in the same garment. There were nods to the past (young Yves, 1974), but no heavy-handed homage. The references were sublimated, held just beneath the surface, like the sheen of cigaline silk submerged in silicone.
Accessories were sparse but sharp: pointed shoes with satin roses, jewellery in rock crystal (a YSL talisman). As always, nothing felt added — only refined.
Vaccarello isn’t trying to surprise us anymore. That’s the point. He’s chiselling away at a house language until all that’s left is its essential shape: lean, elegant, and just suggestive enough to keep you looking.
If last season was about the night, this one is about full presence — dry afternoon light, no theatrical glow. You don’t need drama when the cut is this good.
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