Saint Laurent, from gold to black
To celebrate his tenth year at the helm of Saint Laurent, Anthony Vaccarello has bathed the House’s entire aesthetic in gold. A dazzling tribute to Yves Saint Laurent, to his fascination with this sun-kissed metal, and to the woman who never has to apologise for being seen. In the final moments of the show, gold gives way to black. A symbol to be unravelled. Isabelle Cerboneschi
‘I love gold; it’s a magical colour. When it reflects a woman, it’s the colour of the sun,’ declared Yves Saint Laurent. The couturier loved gold, not as an outward sign of wealth, but as a light – a colour capable of transforming a garment, emphasising a gesture, and illuminating a face. From his very first collections, he used it for the buttons on his cabin coats; then came belts, chains, jewellery and embroidery, until gold came to dominate certain dresses entirely.
In designing his Spring/Summer 2027 collection, Anthony Vaccarello, Saint Laurent’s creative director, took the master’s quote almost literally. During the show, he incorporated gold everywhere: on the catwalk and as part of the set design. Facing the Eiffel Tower, beneath three gigantic golden chandeliers suspended in the Parisian night, he sent a succession of women covered in gold down the catwalk. Sublime!
The creative director made use of every possible shade – pale or deep gold, matt or shiny, Byzantine or Renaissance, weathered, crinkled, embroidered, almost liquid at times – and every material, from metallised cotton to crinkled canvas, from guipure to brocade, from lamé to organza. The gold was so pervasive that it ceased to be ostentatious. A magnificent paradox.
The entire Saint Laurent aesthetic was rendered in gold: the tuxedo and the safari jacket, of course, but also the powerful shoulders, the trench coat, the evening gowns, the oversized jewellery, the sheer fabrics, the sculpted, vertiginous heels. A way of highlighting a woman who need not apologise for being visible. Anthony Vaccarello has not, however, simply reproduced the archives: he has drawn on them in fragments, as if sixty years of Saint Laurent were rising to the surface before being immersed in a bath of gold.
The collection is certainly spectacular, and yet gold seems to cease being a colour and become a material. A golden safari jacket remains a safari jacket. A golden trench coat remains a trench coat. Anthony Vaccarello does not cover the garments in gold: he seems to have designed them out of gold. Yves Saint Laurent once said of black: ‘Modern black. I always brighten it up with gold – in buttons, belts and chains.’ Anthony Vaccarello seems to have done the opposite, using gold in the same way that Yves Saint Laurent used black.
There is, in fact, a historical precedent: for his Rive Gauche Autumn/Winter 1991 collection, Yves Saint Laurent concluded his show with a series of golden looks. Thirty-five years later, Anthony Vaccarello reverses the trend: after a long procession of golden outfits, the final ten looks are black. Gold returns to black.
It is hard to ignore the context of this show, which marks Anthony Vaccarello’s ten years at Saint Laurent and comes at a time when rumours of his departure are rife. Without official confirmation, there is no point in speculating. Let us leave the final word to Anthony Vaccarello, who has been writing a truly brilliant chapter in the House’s history for the past ten years: “A light shines all the more brightly because we know it cannot be held. What passes sometimes leaves more light than what remains.”
