What a one for the ages movie scene this would have been: A meeting in the very early 1980s between Yves Saint Laurent, the undisputed (if oftentimes dissolute) king of Paris haute couture, and Robert Mapplethorpe, the prince of the New York art world—and its hardcore Meatpacking District sex clubs. Did this encounter ever happen? Who knows? Maybe, maybe not. But it makes for a great story: two cultural titans of different generations, locked into their own addictions and dependencies, then bringing their individual brilliance, shadowed by roiling darkness, into contact with each other. It’s this narrative which sparked Anthony Vaccarello’s quicksilver imagination for his fall 2025 Saint Laurent men’s show. “It was interesting to imagine what two favorite people of mine might have said to each other back then,” said Vaccarello. “Yves Saint Laurent was trying to hold onto his respectability while tearing it apart, and Robert was very chic but you can feel a toughness in his attitude.”
Like the rest of us, Vaccarello’s none the wiser to the veracity of any meeting. But certainly, some evidence of a coming together of sorts exists: A catalog of a 1983 YSL men’s collection which Mapplethorpe photographed, with chiselled features sitting atop double breasted blazers, natty three-piece suits, and ties knotted with a firm hand. All of this led to this exceptional collection of Vaccarello’s, an ode to sobriety and sexuality in one gorgeous tailored form, offset by the longest leather wader boots worn by any man ever. (Well, in daylight, at least.) It’s a look, said Vaccarello, laughing, “where you’re respectable on the top, but dirty on the way down.”
The narrative of a move to a post quiet luxury yet still monied and more classical wardrobe has been a thread throughout the recent run of men’s shows. Vaccarello’s YSL crowns that season, even if he sidestepped the usual schedule and decided to show slap bang in the middle of the couture. To be sure, there were plenty of very desirable and impeccable clothes here which would work across ages: swaggering coats; terrific suits, their new shoulderline sloping ever so slightly, the body cut with a controlled ’80s boxiness, and worn with wide pants; striped shirts adorned with substantial ties; and weathered leather aviator blousons cut to accommodate the physique of an ’80s GQ model.
And yet, and yet: Vaccarello is absolutely not interested in being part of that flock. Instead, he slyly teased out the story of what happens when what looks sober and straitlaced is revealed to be nothing more than a facade; that virtuous piety and morality can cloak something much less palatable. (Sound familiar in today’s world? Hmm, thought so.) In terms of YSL himself, Vaccarello says, he looked back to the moment when the designer was barely holding it together; a picture of Savile Row elegance even while fighting to keep his demons in check. And in turn, he revisited some of Saint Laurent’s work at the dawn of the Greed is Good decade; the polished way he handled feathers and plaids for his women’s collections, which Vaccarello then transposed into his men’s, such as with the myriad boldly Scottish checked outerwear, or the swathe of gleaming plumes to make a collar or indeed a whole coat. (Come the Met Gala the first Monday in May, guys will be lining up to sport this collection’s dandier impulses.)
The mark of a good collection is, no surprise here, the clothes; I mean, of course it is. The mark of a really good collection is how those clothes are woven into a tale which actually tells us something about where we are right now, good or indeed bad. Looking back to the era that in part inspired his collection, “there was a danger, a kind of anxiety,” he said, “and in a way we can relate to that today.” Vaccarello has become quite the storyteller, and maybe he’s been honing those skills through his cinema work with Saint Laurent Productions. His next big night isn’t going to be his women’s fall 2025 show, but a trip to the Academy Awards, where he and the house are going in anticipation of Emilia Pérez taking one or some—or all!—of the YSL-funded movie’s record breaking 13 Oscar nominations. Vaccarello has no idea what to expect; it’s his first time going. And come to think of it, the Paris designer at the epicenter of Hollywood for a night—that’s a pretty great movie scene right there too.
