It was a 24-karat unofficial goodbye.
Saint Laurent has not confirmed the crescendoing whispers that its creative director, Anthony Vaccarello, is leaving after 10 years at the helm. But if a show could talk, this one would have said farewell.
Even before it began, after all, the brand was posting promo stills from Louis Malle’s 1958 thriller, “Elevator to the Gallows” on its Instagram page. Then there was the note sent to some guests from Vaccarello himself, describing the show as “very personal” and “charged with emotion.”
On the front row were the many muses the designer had gathered over the years: Zoe Saldaña, Hailey Bieber, Kate Moss, Milk Pansa, Zoë Kravitz — plus the originals, Catherine Deneuve and Betty Catroux. A series of enormous radiant chandeliers, made to mimic the chandeliers at the Hôtel Inter-Continental in Paris, where Yves Saint Laurent (the founder) used to hold his couture shows, hung above a gold mirrored runway in the gardens of the Trocadéro. Over it all twinkled the lights of Eiffel Tower, glittering against the night sky.
Still, all that gold was nothing compared to the gold on the runway: 49 variations on a theme. Gold bomber jackets and pencil skirts. Gold trench coats of varnished silicon. Gold safari jackets. Gold treated to look like crunched-up metal and gold treated to look like crocodile. Gold with a long mousseline scarf tied around the neck and trailing behind. Gold lace cocktail dresses and gold tank tops trimmed in bullion. Cropped gold brocade tops finished in fur at the cuffs and cropped gold brocade trousers.
Sure, it’s a new gilded age and all that, but even by those standards, this was a bit much.
But then, themes have been a … well, theme, of Vaccarello’s tenure, ever since he joined Saint Laurent in 2016 with the unenviable task of following in Hedi Slimane’s footsteps. You remember: the Slimane who dropped the “Yves” from the brand’s name, and scandalized the world by finding his inspiration, and a frisson of danger, not in Parisian cinema but L.A.’s night crawlers.
Still, Vaccarello proved a dab hand at the job, as the length of his tenure reflects — a rarity in a fashion world in which designers now often last only a few years at a house (if that). Saint Laurent’s revenue more than doubled during Vaccarello’s watch. His way with the brand’s signature tuxedo suit has been just slick enough, although he has proved more caretaker than innovator.
For every show, Vaccarello has plucked an idea from the archives, polishing it over and over until it shone. One season, it was the aviator suit; the next, the lace frock. One season, the gypsy collection, then the go-go 1980s. Always with the same stiletto heels, red lips, slicked back hair and big costume jewelry that defined the brand’s ’70s heyday.
It was very Saint Laurent, except for one thing: Yves Saint Laurent himself was one of the great originators of fashion, changing the vernacular of the industry and, in the process, all of our closets. He dared to transform how we thought about clothes, and who could wear what (The New York socialite Nan Kempner once was famously ejected from La Côte Basque for daring to wear a YSL tux). Vaccarello never did. As a result, his collections, assured as they were, began to look increasingly like a nostalgia play for former days of chic rather than an attempt to redefine them.
This show being a case in point. All that gold may have been part of the YSL signature — indeed, the designer used gold so much that in 2022, the Musée Yves Saint Laurent opened an exhibition devoted entirely to his work with the color, which he called “today’s black” — but after the 20th suit it made your teeth ache.
(Of course, given the current state of luxury, and the implication that Vaccarello was departing it, perhaps that was the point.)
In any case, a finale of 10 black velvet suits and gowns made from swaths of black organza, like gathering storm clouds, came as something of a relief. Then Charlotte Gainsbourg, another Vaccarello muse, took to the catwalk in a — yes — tuxedo and began to croon a song apparently dedicated to the house, involving many repeated “Yves Saint Laurents.”
At the end, Vaccarello appeared for his bow, hugging Gainsbourg and then hopping off the runway to hand a key (maybe the key to the house?) to his young son, seated in the audience. Then he exited through a scrum of models, like a gilded honor guard, clapping him out.
It wasn’t exactly closure because, as has become a damaging trend in the industry, the actual news was still unsaid. But perhaps it was near enough.
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