“A danger in the air, an anxiety.” Backstage before his Autumn/Winter 2025 Saint Laurent menswear show, Anthony Vaccarello could’ve been talking about right now, but instead was casting his mind back to the early 1980s, and an imaginary meeting between Yves Saint Laurent and Robert Mapplethorpe, both of whom walked on the wild side. The difference was, of course, that Mapplethorpe glorified and framed it through his photographs, embracing his position as an art world enfant terrible – photographing fisting will garner a certain repute – while Yves was returning to the respectability of haute couture after his nights of debauchery. Symbolically, in the centre of the show venue, the grand chandeliers that used to sway over Saint Laurent couture shows at the Hôtel Intercontinental seemed to have come crashing to the ground.
So, this collection was about the melding together of the aesthetics and tastes of two men Vaccarello described as his favourite. In practice, the divide between the two was swift and neat – the tops were Saint Laurent, the bottoms Mapplethorpe, courtesy of beyond-thigh-high boots referencing Saint Laurent’s own 1963 ‘Robin Hood’ collection. Although those were never proposed for men – here, they almost became industrial waders in the black leather that became Mapplethorpe’s trademark, like chopped-apart versions of his signature chaps.
Those were universal – above was classic, timeless tailoring, shoulders softly extended in fine wools and checked tweeds or tartans, the bourgeoisie tastes that were the façade to Saint Laurent’s fetishistic fantasies. Those have, in retrospect, been well-documented, a Pandora’s closet - maybe not even in retrospect. In Andy Warhol’s diaries, for 4 September 1977, he recalled a lunch with Saint Laurent and his life and business partner Pierre Bergé. “The dogs were let out and Pierre played with them,” Warhol dictated. “He told us that he uses a cock ring. Pierre said that they were putting silicone in cocks now so that they stay hard all the time. Yves told me he hoped everyone would do it so he could design new pants.” Or, maybe, those boots.
Here, however, the top halves were largely business, with some of the sharpest and sleekest tailoring of the season. For evening, there was a touch of couture extravagance – on his moodboard, alongside a Saint Laurent menswear editorial oddly shot by Mapplethorpe in 1983, Vaccarello had a picture of Katoucha Niane crouching in a Saint Laurent couture feather coat from his winter 1990 couture collection. The idea turned into feather-lined great coats and tufted feather collars for evening.
The tension Vaccarello highlighted in the early 80s was, of course, due in part to the Aids epidemic that claimed many creative lives, not least Mapplethorpe’s, and included that of Jacques de Bascher, a lover of both Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld. Tastelessly, the house of Saint Laurent often had to deny rumours around the founder’s HIV status. In March 1990 – a few months before he designed that spectacular feather coat – Yves Saint Laurent entered the American Hospital in Neuilly-sur-Seine, missing his own show (this time, ready-to-wear) for the first time ever. “It’s not a heart attack; it’s not Aids and it’s not cancer,” Bergé told the New York Times. Even his death was often announced.
Of course, the tension of now is very different to that moment – political and moralistic, but in part it will achieve the same thing the Aids crisis did. To obliterate freedom. Vaccarello’s show was a tense tightrope between restraint and abandonment, reflecting the odd moment we find ourselves in. “We can all relate to the moment that we are living,” he said, quietly. “It’s interest when fashion is influenced.” And in doing so, he continues the legacy of Saint Laurent, a fashion bellwether and a house that demands of its creative directors something bigger and more meaningful than just bland beauty. Vaccarello achieved that.
