Excerpt: Saint Laurent. Spring/Summer 2026 - Paris Fashion Week

"...The late Yves Saint Laurent sybaritic imprint, despite the excessive opulence, was tied closely with the openness of sexual liberation, which of course is a form of dissent against the rigidity of conservatism a far cry to what it once was 55 years ago, a gay liberation was crucial for the rights of sexual orientation without the fears of persecution and prejudice.  And all of this is unwinding under the most Far Right president America, and the world, has ever seen.  So, it's no surprise that Vaccarello has offered a rebellious gay imprint to his latest women's collection, be it the leather clad cruising of the underground homosexual community, which was predominant in the mid to late 1970s.

And this is Vaccarello's most leather orientated collection to date, although he has experimented with the Saint Laurent leather skirts, shorts and cropped biker jackets in past seasons, of late, it has been mostly sheer and revealing, with one night stand amamtory attached, after sipping Godfather cocktails (such a sexy cocktail) with your lover, in a dimly lit, trendy bar in Manhattan.   But, can Vaccarello switch a gay cultural aesthetic of decades old to women?   The fusion could be awkward at best, and more novelty based as he was quoted in saying prior to the show, "I wanted to start with, like, the idea of cruising from the gay scene in the Tuileries...I wanted to redo it in front of the Trocadero, having these women in leather cruising round a big YSL"  And remember, for the younger generations who maybe unaware, cruising means cruising for sex..."

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(A.Glass 2025)

Full review: chiasmusmagazine.blogspot.com/2025/10/saint-laurent-springsummer-2026-paris.html