FactualFor Saint Laurent’s fall-winter 2021-2022 collection, presented on Tuesday April 28 outside the official calendar, Anthony Vaccarello has created a wardrobe tinted with bourgeois codes of the 1960s and sometimes with kitsch references. But the silhouettes are always chic, sexy and cropped.
In April 2020, the Saint Laurent house announced on its Instagram account that it was leaving the official calendar of Parisian fashion weeks. A decision motivated by the desire to present the collections to the world once they are ready, without constraint of deadlines. Thus, the artistic director of the brand since 2016, Anthony Vaccarello, unveiled his fall-winter 2021-2022 line on Tuesday April 28, at 2 p.m., through a spectacularly staged film called Where the Silver Wind Blows.
Are we in Iceland? On the shores of a Norwegian fjord? The mystery remains, a desire of the house not to share its manufacturing secrets. Signed by director Nathalie Canguilhem, this ten-minute epic takes up the traditional codes of fashion shows, namely a succession of models filmed walking.
But the podium is hostile, especially perched on pumps and tall boots with heels: black sand beaches, steep gray cliffs, shores strewn with pieces of stranded glaciers or large plains covered with frosted grass … After having taken us into the heat of the desert for the presentation of the spring-summer 2021 collection, Anthony Vaccarello chose a very appropriate decor for the winter wardrobe.
Shiny sequins and transparent veil
The collection then appears as a perfect contrast to this a priori inhospitable nature. Articulated around chic, sexy and always short-dressed silhouettes – the designer’s signature – it diverts the bourgeois codes of the 1960s, by injecting saturated colors straight from the 1980s. The elegant suit jackets fashioned in a thick tweed are available in green, pink, red or purple and accompany short skirts, sometimes embroidered with faux vegetal fur, sometimes in lamé leather.
Here and there we find long-sleeved tunics, tight pants or mini shorts in gold brocade. The omnipresent black is nested on jackets in shiny sequins or on tops in transparent veil with sleeves embroidered with ostrich feathers. A succession of laminated jersey bodysuits slip into skirts or pants worn short.
Costume jewelry, which is an integral part of the history of the house, is displayed here in majesty. Silver or colored rhinestone chandelier earrings, clover or sunflower belts and long necklaces, golden long necklace with an imposing cross… Another inspiration assumed by the designer: the look sometimes on the thread of good taste of the Canadian singer Peaches, queen electroclash and the shock of colors in the 1990s. Between an exotic escape and a sophisticated wardrobe, tinged with sometimes kitsch references, Anthony Vaccarello succeeds in shaking our certainties about the codes of luxury.
