Saint Laurent. Spring 2025 - Paris Fashion Week
Does Anthony Vaccarello believe in ghosts? He should, as he keeps evoking the restless spirits from eras gone by. As a respectful homage? At times, when one should view the past as a lesson and release the residual that wishes to leave this earthly realm. And of my many reviews of Vaccarello's Saint Laurent shows, with his aptitude of upping the ante of the carnal, there is also, at times, a bluntness of drawing from the past. Whether it be his romanticism of the heroin chic Chelsea Hotel of the mid to late 1970s or the hedonic cocaine nights of Studio 54 of the late 1970s, that went onto the early to mid 1980s, offers a tantalizing glimpse into the libreative aspects of hedonistic cues. But, it came with a cost. As one precariously lived closer to the edge of oblivion in that hunt for fame, many did fall into the boulevard of broken dreams, and New York City, Los Angeles spat out those dreamers in rapid succession over the last Five decades, in their vain hopes and dreams of stardom.
How does this compare with the current hyperreal of TikTok famers on a digital reloop, and the plethora of nobodies all vying for the delusion of grandeur through a mobile phone. It doesn't. it is incomparable. Yet, arrogance in all of its deluded prefabrication, can hold an appeal, at least in supporting the idealism that somehow we have it all together, when in fact society has moved beyond its Potemkin village stage, and it is now in absolute decline. Like the band playing away on the sinking Titanic, when it was actually sinking. A little dramatic? Maybe, but it's an appropriate metaphor.
Vaccarello's Spring 2025 collection went from his famed eros and amourous benchmarks of the feminine, to the masculine of late 1970s Yves Saint Laurent powersuits, and then, towards the end of the collection, back to the amatory. In a strange dichotomy of reinvigorating the epicureanism of Fifty years ago, which conked out in the stagnated and entrepreneurial wishfulness of the 1990s. But, one cannot deny, despite the fusing of timelines in an ad hoc way, Vaccarello's ability to craft his Saint Laurent imprint with precision. The collection is striking, but not ground breaking. His sexulalized elements of the sheer, boho chic inspired lace cocktail dresses are on display. When it was infidelity, Wall Street ambitions, Manhattan cocktails and the ease of a one-night-stand. With the beginning of the collection, representing the female models adorning the late Yves Saint Laurent's own stylized ensemble, that he wore when he was alive. Including his heavy set thick rimmed glasses, yet Vaccarello has sidestepped Yves liberating "Le Smoking" evening wear suits for women, that he revealed to Paris in the mid 1960s. Instead, it is Yves own post-French colonialism style of the heavy laden camel and grey colorless suits, as Yves himself grew up in Algeria, and wore his famous attire and glasses up until his passing in 2008.
Overall there was an odd paradoxical aspect to this collection. As mentioned, with its fumbling attempt at fusing the said eras, while reanimating the late Yves Saint Laurent's own style, which appears hastily put together, even with Vaccarello's precision. Dare I say, Vaccarello's latest collection feels haunted and lost?
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(A.Glass 2024)
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