Saint Laurent is back on the official Paris Fashion Week Menswear calendar after being on hiatus since January 23. Kering has a new CEO, Luca de Meo and he is there to raise the stock value of Kering in a market that is reevaluating luxury goods. To do so, you have to show the public the crown jewels. And what a crown jewel Saint Laurent is. Its founder Yves invented dress pants and tuxedos for women. Bianca Jagger famously wore his tuxedo for her wedding with Sir Mick. Yves was the first living couturier that had an exhibit dedicated to him. And next to that, he was one of the first to use art on clothing when he did the Mondrian collection.

So YSL almost invented the principle house code, and therefore Saint Laurent has all the more reason to bring back their menswear collection in this SS26 show. We’ll dive into that in a moment, but first please close your eyes for a minute. Let me transport you to another time and place. Breathe in and imagine you are in Morocco, the smell of citronella in the air, the damp air on your skin, the sounds of bowls chiming. You slowly sink into stillness whilst shutting out the world. And it was this transportation to another world that was obviously a theme for this milestone return to the official calendar. 

Yves Saint Laurent was a big fan of the intellectual Proust. Proust wrote about memories and emotions in his most famous work In search of lost time. He specifically writes that memories and emotions tend to come up through sounds or smells. And as we create our meaning and value from these personal experiences, they become existential. Coincidentally existentialisme was central in the YSL house code back in his own days. Yves Saint Laurent was heavily inspired by the look of Parisian existentialists that frequented the cafes at the left bank of Paris, Rive Gauche, after which he later famously named his pret-a-porter boutique. The air of intellectual intensity definitely found its way to Anthony Valcorella and this SS26 collection. 

Cue the choice for the show location, Bourse de Commerce, owned by the owner of Kering, Francois Pinault. In the rotunda of this location is an artwork by Celeste Boursier Mougenot. A light blue pool filled with white ceramic bowls. These bowls gently touch and create their own unique melody. A melody that has not been heard before and no one will ever hear again. Just by coincidence without human intervention. Where Proust teaches us about being transported in time through smell, Celeste transports us in time through sound. 

That brings us back to the present at Anthony Vaccorella’s show. A show, refreshingly, not filled to brim with paid celebrities. This resembles the style of Yves Saint Laurent himself, who once said he had enough of making dresses for jaded billionaires and that he rather make clothes for women from harems, castles, the suburbs, the dime stores and stock exchanges. I’m not sure how affordable YSL would be for the people in the dime store, but perhaps he means the vintage store. This may explain why Saint Laurent was not on everybody’s bingo cards for the fashion musical chairs in recent years, as Saint Laurent focused more on community and less on being a kingmaker. A trend that has become more noticeable in recent years for other brands as well, but perhaps with the appointment of the new CEO that direction has changed. 

When you think of the Yves Saint Laurent man, you may think of a man with an air of intellectuality, taking good care of himself through his choices of tailoring and fabrics. He will have a love for colours and esthetics. Wide shoulders, tight waist suits and wearing strongly rimmed glasses. That man was very present in this show. I especially loved the ties, which were tied in an unusual twist and tuck. Both the ties and the cravates were great references to 1930’s sportswear and gave the outfits a sort of uniform feel. 

Now onto the colours, which were the atelier’s crown. Historically, Yves Saint Laurent took inspiration from glass in lead many times. In this show it almost seemed as if the glass domed roof above the runway had released its colours onto the models. All the burnt & bright colours were there, except for the black of the lead, which was still in the dome. There were also many complementary colours, some looks  were like chocolate caramel desserts, both in colour and drape of the fabric. Next to the color palette it is rare to see such a well executed conjunction of atelier tailleur and atelier flou. There are not a lot of designers who get this right, but Anthony Vaccorella certainly did. The only sad thing is, that as the wearer, you would never know how many heads you turned with your back drape.

Some other interesting references were made to a picture of YSL in tennis gear in Nigeria and Fire Island. Fire Island  was a gay community in the 1950’s, a place for cruising and hedonism. A clip on Youtube gives insight into the vibe of this place and the references to this collection are striking. 

Small personal request from my side: can looks 40 and 42 become the new uniform for finance bros please? End of request. 

The absolute winner of this show for me was look 28. This look perfectly reimagines the gentleman thief look and would be absolutely perfect for a new season of Lupin. I mean what a look to move through social classes.

And as the show ended I wasn’t not looking for Proust’s lost time, it was a show I’m sure a lot of attendees will happily go back to when they encounter the right sound or smell. It’s exactly that stillness Valcorella tried to invoke with his show – and it worked.