A Big Day for Thigh High Boots on Men

And so it was that men’s fashion week ended not with a bang, but with a skintight patent leather boot.

Just past nine on Tuesday night, Saint Laurent’s models slinked around the rotunda inside the Bourse de Commerce, looking as if they’d been dipped in unset black paint. Their boots crept well above the knee, the chiseled front recalling 1990s square toes, long since mocked into obsolesce. (Kenneth Cole, vindicated?) They were kinky, domineering and maybe a little too distracting.

Anthony Vaccarello, the Saint Laurent designer, has hit these heights before. A year ago, the boots were thigh-high, yet off the leg. Traditional, just tall. (You may recall Pedro Pascal on the red carpet in those.) This version was like a knight’s armor in scrunched, thigh-squeezing leather.

I left the show wondering how one even slithers into leather legging boots? (I officially propose we call them beggings.) Wouldn’t they get … sticky? A magazine editor from Germany offered that I could visit a particular kind of shop and discover all the answers.

The boots, which arrived well into the show, pulsed some electricity into a collection that was precise, if predictable. The Vaccarello house style — especially his hard-edge, ’80s revivalist tailoring — is now fixed. We can expect Saint Laurent sport coats to land at right angles. Their shoulders will protrude as if a yardstick was imprisoned inside. Celebrities at the show, including Connor Storrie of “Heated Rivalry” (a coup for the brand’s V.I.P. wranglers), wore sibling suits of what came down the runway.

“For the man, it’s always hard to play with reinventing a look,” Vaccarello said backstage. “And I like that. It’s always playing with classic details just twisted a little bit.”

And there were twists in this dark-as-the-Seine-at-3-a.m. collection. (Vaccarello said he was inspired by James Baldwin’s doomed Parisian romance “Giovanni’s Room.”) Sport coats had a feminine pinch. There’s that long and lean shape again. Scooped sweater necks dipped below mid pec. And models came stuffed with bouffant ascots and neckties, a questionable “hat on a hat” styling choice.

But, on the whole, this was Vaccarello in continuity mode. And that’s not a bad thing. Designers can work their whole careers and not sniff a signature like Vaccarello has for himself. But this show arrived at the climax of a season in which suits and ties were plentiful to the point of mundanity. Vaccarello’s impressive, exaggerated suits are now simply part of a trend. It will take more than Saran-wrap boots for him to separate himself again.

Other final things worth knowing about:

Camiel Fortgens does the quarter-zip trend one better. This Dutch designer has made sublime full zips for years, honing them like a family sauce recipe. I love the exaggerated seams — more Margiela than Peter Millar. Backstage, after his latest show, Fortgens explained that they’re made from a material normally used for cuffs, hence the spongy texture. “It’s such a great fabric. We just cut it, we stitch it, it’s done.”
Saint Laurent aside, when we look back, I predict we’ll think of this as the pop-of-color season. This plane hasn’t arrived in Technicolor land yet — too much tasteful black and beige lingering around for that. But I could sense the burblings of a color comeback. The bubble gum lining of an Hermès coat, the Tweety yellow dress shirt at Louis Vuitton, the eggplant scarf at Auralee were all siren songs luring men toward color.
I hope the woman waiting outside the Saint Laurent after-party with a copy of “Heated Rivalry” got Connor Storrie’s autograph. And to think this show isn’t even out in France yet.
I’m glad I went to the Satisfy showroom for this item: track jorts. The Parisian running brand created nippy shorts printed to look like denim cutoffs. This trompe l’oeil grandchild of Andre Agassi’s famed Nike tennis jorts were the kookiest thing I saw this week. I don’t run, but I kind of want them.
The sneaker brand to know is Village PM. Their $120 sneakers combine a tapered-toe skate shoe spliced with an indoor rock climbing shoe. An interesting shape that feels as if it points to where sneakers may be heading.
The only store I waited to get into this week: Preclothed, a Left Bank vintage shop with the aura of an art gallery. As a woman next to me tried on heaps of Chanel, I slipped on a museum-quality Forestière jacket from the bygone French men’s wear house Arnys. My wallet was practically ajar until I caught the price: 2,500 euros (about $2,995). That was my cue to exit.