UNDER THE night sky in Paris, Anthony Vaccarello reminded his guests of the sultry power that clothes can have and made them invisible. Well, sort of.
For Saint Laurent‘s autumn-winter 2024 show, the designer decided to strip everything back, from saying goodbye to the opulent runway against the Eiffel Tower to the thread count of the materials. This season, the idea of revealing took centre stage with transparency finding its way across the designs.
Though this is far from being a new trait of the House but actually one that began here in 1966; when Yves Saint Laurent birthed a nude look with a sheer top and two years later, he presented a chiffon dress that be belted with ostrich feathers.
Tight, figure-hugging silhouettes were the backdrop to this nude inspired collection, with opaque fabrics melded across the chest and waist to present formal turtle-neck and pencil skirt combinations and dresses that brush past the knee – perfectly described in the show notes as “the length is classic, but the content is novel”.
Touching upon the unforgettable last public appearance of Marilyn Monroe where she sang Happy Birthday Mr. President in a ‘naked’ dress, the process of creating AW24 took the image from the side of the moodboard into the centre, questioning how you can bring the “unsettling ambivalence cuts” to clothes today.
Can you conceal whilst still remaining obvious? Vaccarello proves you can.
Silk, long sleeve mini dresses were finished with suspender hook attachments to elongate the dress into its stockings to bring underwear to the outside. Whilst sex appeal was going full speed ahead, tailoring was still very much present.
Crepe georgette suits washed across the frame like liquid, and coats crafted from marabou feathers brought some bounce to the looks for a playful addition to AW24.
Not straying away from the palette that has washed across the brand’s visual identity over the past few years, the collection was painted in the usual blacks, khakis, maroons and hues of powdery blue and lilac – going between overtly masculine to delicately feminine.
Dancing between AW24 being just provocative to whether the exposed body is a symbol of purity, Anthony Vaccarello conjures up a collection that proves sexy can be seen in so many different ways resulting in a prism of answers and looks for the woman ready to bare all.
by Imogen Clark