Saint Laurent. Spring 2021 RTW











(Images:  Saint Laurant)


Anthony Vaccarello's 1960s and 1970s homage to its counter culture ethos is maintained with his latest Saint Laurant collection, probably becoming more solidified in light of a crisis that humanity has not faced in over 100 years, that being this global pandemic.   As noted in my past reviews, the caricature snapshot of a post 1950s conservative backlash and its counter culture feels more hyperreal within the 21st Century.   As we all try to make sense of the pandemic and its political misfiring, which included, earlier on in the pandemic a social denial of the severity of the virus.  It is safe to say there is very little similarities to a counter culture of the past and our society today, so there is not much to compare to the bygone era of the 60's and 70's apart from a trending hashtag on Twitter.   We have all become, despite the variants of aesthetics,  uncomfortable spectators of past and current events through these digital relays.  Sociologically one has to be cynical, maybe even detached, of what is perceived within the flickering news feeds – of what could be an information overload, even through Vaccarello's feels that an echo is resonating from past to present.  It very well might be, but it can end up becoming scripted than anything else, which is a shame.  Still, fashion holds hopeful cues of change and Vaccarello's flirtation with such an interesting and tumultuous era makes for an attractive distraction indeed, more so is his expertise in crafting the styles on offer in all of its reflection.

2020 fashion weeks were comprised mostly of lookbooks and exclusive online shows.    With second and third waves of COVID-19 sweeping across the Northern Hemisphere mixed with large doses of social unrest, it is safe to say that the digital fashion weeks will be maintained throughout 2021 which will include the lookbook continuations.  As conglomerate companies, who own the prestigious fashion houses, hold a hope that China will come back on line as their primary luxury buyer.  However the current trade war with China is all but a certainty, even under the newly elected President Biden, while at the same time the other more pressing concerns is the Hong Kong and Taiwan Cold War-esque tensions between the Asian superpower and America.  Maybe Vaccarello is right, history is repeating, albeit stuck in its digital glitch.

For his latest collection, which includes a short 10min movie, it is more akin of 60's retro futurist rather than previously collections that portrayed a darker cult like fixture of hippie doomsday cultism, yet, in this fusion of a 1960s alternative time line, it does appear that Vaccarello has transfused it onto a 21st Century gothic – so it still feels like an end-of-the-world doomy and why not?  2019 to date is all about viruses, civil unrest and cold war redux. To which Vaccarello has created a mostly black and white backdrop of achromatic dualities that, from nature, belong to the same eminence.  As non-colors they both contemplate a balance, one reflects light, the other, without any discrimination, absorbs it.  The whole collection has been over layered with some of the finest crafted clothing you would expect from the prestigious fashion house, yet it is not as vampy as previous seasons, rather the silhouette cast reveals an edge of solemnity, to which Vaccarello's lingerie styled outwear styles, combined with Art Nouveau inspired jewelry, courtesy of designer Claude Lalanna, maintains its overall prophetic appeal.  At over 80 pieces,  it is one of the larger collections in lieu of 2021.

So yes, we can be nostalgic of the tumultuous period that was the 1960s and 1970s, drawing from some of its romanticism, but what is not learned from the past, often repeats.    

    

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