How do you trace the thread that connects Anthony Vaccarello’s superlative tailoring for Saint Laurent from last fall—all big shoulders and, well, even bigger shoulders—to the sublimely casual insouciance of his humble cotton shirting for this coming spring? That’s where this resort offering comes in, as much a celebration of the house codes—this time round: fantastic short draped cocktailania in polka dots or colorful florals, rendered with an easy, spirited attitude—as it is a work in progress from one collection to the next.
Those major jackets are now slimmed down and fitted close to the body, as close as a shirt, belted and buttoned all the way up, a glinting logo-ed buckle the only embellishment, and worn with towering metal trimmed slingback stilettos. Vaccarello might be one of the very few designers making a case for the heel in an era when low/lower/lowest has become the norm—though he endorses the notion that the best way to make a cocktail dress look 2024 is to ensure that the shoes it is worn with are as flat as the dress’s hemline is short. Also of note here: Two new (and new-ish) bag shapes—the just introduced structured high gloss Rendez-Vous shoulder bag, and from that fall 2023 collection, the soft and supple Bea—which are as practical and capacious as the clothes are streamlined and unadorned.
What all this delivers is a reminder of how much Vaccarello’s Saint Laurent, be it runway statement piece or rethought classic, is designed to have a wardrobe life far beyond the season from which it emanates. He gets that when it comes to Saint Laurent, newness should always be about novelty without an expiration date. Something else that’s evident: Vaccarello is building on his own legacy at the house too. Some of the standouts of the resort riff on his earlier work for the house, as well as, in fact, some of his own pre-YSL Anthony Vaccarello collections. The sinuous, almost swimwear-like, bodycon dressing, with a whiff of the minimalist ’90s, in jersey, leather, and slippery liquid satin, evokes an idea that luminous glamour should also be absolutely effortless.