Paris Fashion Week kicked off with a bang on Tuesday evening (Sept. 27), where former Versus Versace creative director Anthony Vaccarello made his debut at the helm of one of the city’s most storied luxury houses, Saint Laurent.
Staged on the dirt and plaster foundations of what will soon become the company’s new headquarters — from which a giant, white-lit YSL logo hung suspended from a tall crane — Vaccarrello introduced the new Saint Laurent. Gone were the metallic babydoll dresses, devil-may-care leather jackets and supersize furs of predecessor Hedi Slimane’s L.A. rocker-chic tenure; this collection hearkened back to the heady, glamorous heyday of the original Yves Saint Laurent, pouf sleeves and all.
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What will the change in creative direction mean for musicians and the stylists who dress them? Only time will tell. Slimane, who moved the company’s design studio from Paris to L.A., both borrowed and heavily influenced L.A.’s rock music scene, looking to artists like Sky Ferreira, Kim Gordon, Lou Doillon and Courtney Love for inspiration and casting them in his campaigns. While Vaccarrello’s designs lend themselves less easily to the punkish aesthetic of a Ferreira, per se, they do have an obvious stage appeal: particularly the glittering, off-the-shoulder dresses and blouses, as well as the more dramatic leather separates with their tight bodices and poufed shoulders.
It was clear that Vaccarrello was looking to music artists when designing this collection, though of a different type than Slimane: A sharp-shouldered tuxedo jacket immediately called to mind the singer and former Yves Saint Laurent model Grace Jones; while a black leather minidress, cut to expose a single breast and a heart-shaped silver nipple pastie, recalled the more recent sartorial adventures/advances/experiments of Lil’ Kim or Miley Cyrus.
Both Vaccarello, who has dressed Cyrus, Doillon and Jennifer Lopez in the past, as well as Saint Laurent have deep ties in the music industry. Now we’ll have to see how those relationships bear out on the stage — and the red carpet.