EXCERPT: SAINT LAURENT. FALL READY-TO-WEAR 2024 - PARIS FASHION WEEK

 "It is very hard to define a peak, but maybe, and if you have been reading my fashion reviews since the 2020 pandemic, collectively as a society, we could be all at a major decline.  Yet, paradoxically, this may not be negative, but a reassessment of societal priorities, when all said and done, are being forced upon us, as it has numerous times in history.  The pandemic set it off.  However, it is the creative, regardless of cultures rising and falling, who faces that peak and inevitable decline after every completion of work.  So the question has to be asked, away from the general ethos of doom.  To which point does an artistic concept reach its end?  

Anthony Vaccarello's Eight year tenure with Saint Laurent as its Creative Director, is showing no signs of reaching that creative peak, in fact the Belgium designer has excelled himself in revamping the iconic brand name with his homage, that at times is not as subtle as it could be, to the hedonism of the 1970s and early to mid 1980s.  As a study in popular culture, and its echoic aestheticism of bygone eras, Vaccarello's excessiveness and his absorption of those boulavards of lost souls, from New York City to Los Angeles with the plethora of hopefuls who have moved through these City streets over the last Four decades.  And it has been for so many, that didn't make it within the countercultures of the 1960s, 70s and 80s, only to be hastily recopied in its arrogant disposition from the overconfidence of the 21st Century.  That the said decades have been solely looked at as an artistic product.  To be remarketed, without understanding and learning from its historical context.  

Vaccarello's darker romanticism of L.A's Chateau Marmont and NYC's Chelsea Hotel esque imprint for most of his women's collections, echoes that vain hope that one could be graced by fame.  There is at times, a voyeuristic novelty to his collections.  Which holds a simulacrum to the late Yves Saint Laurent sexual liberation opulence of the 60s and 70s..."

___

Full review: chiasmusmagazine.blogspot.com/2024/03/saint-laurent-fall-ready-to-wear-2024.html

(A.Glass 2024)

Pre-Fall 2024 review soon.