Saint Laurent. Fall/Winter 2025 - Paris Fashion Week

 

How do you define the peak of Anthony Vaccarello's hedonistic imprint?  Ala the late Monsieur Saint Laurent's brilliance.  As noted with many of my reviews of Vaccarello's Saint Laurent, Vaccarello has been able to lift the Yve Saint Laurent 1970s and 1980s epicurean to higher levels, dripping opulence and extravagance over the iconic brand name via Vaccarello's own version of the carnal.  Which has, at times, reached so many climatic runaway highs,  it's difficult to offer a particular standout, except to say that his Fall 2024 collection, with its bear-it-all, sheer and enticing arrays gave us all a glimpse of what it was like, when a Friday night out held the very distinct possibility of dancing at a disco, and then sex later on, such was the indulgence and sexually liberated ethos of a generation that is now in their late Seventies.

And as a generalized critique or observation that is of Generation X (now in their Fifties), through its rigidness and confusion, has recopied the Babies Boomers parents, with a fervent desire for that redux Middle Class existence, has inadvertently reinstated 1950s esque conservatism, which is now morphing into the Far Right globally.  And we are so in need of a counterculture, before Elon Musk (an oddball Gen Xer, with a lot of cash), in his personal crusade, attempts to rub it out all together.  And we have no idea where and when this liberated dissonance will come from, so the rule of thumb in this philosophical/historic viewpoint is; that it will seem like it was always there (our renewed counterculture), or not at all.

Fashion has consistently offered that rebellious fixture, as designers search through decades of trends, to source what could define the aesthetics for a year ahead, from modernism, to avant-garde and experimental postmodern looks, fashion refuses to tow the line, despite the conglomerates bearing down on the fashion industry, it is by definition the epitome of rebellion, of course before conformity sets in.  Individual styles and the fluidity to which they are worn, was very much Yve Saint Laurent's calling card within the sexually rampant 1970s, in its romanticized liberation to enjoy the hedonic without guilt and moral consequences.  

For Vaccarello's Fall 2025 collection, he has reflected the spill over of the 1970s carnal, which did indeed last throughout the 1980s, when it was satin, shoulder pads, cocktails, cigarettes, power suits and sex.  With a smattering of leopard prints, sheer tops, miniskirts and lace.  Moving away from Saint Laurent's bohemian chic 70s eros, Vaccarello has dived into those 1984 Wall Street ambitions, be it analogue colored VHS recorders with their washed out tones, and "Penthouse" magazines as reading material on the coffee table of the sleek office foyer.

And when viewing this collection, it reminds me of the fictional, yet poignant character "Marla Bloodstone" from the 1984 movie "Gremlins" who very much reflected that said moment in time.  In all of her chain smoking, power suit wearing and hypersexual grandeur, when she tried to seduce the nerdy star of the movie.

Vaccarello continues to impress, as he draws out the past to imprint onto the now.

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(A.Glass 2025)