For years, the Saint Laurent show has taken place at night with the glittering Eiffel Tower as the backdrop to the runway. Last night was no different as show attendees gathered in the Trocadero gardens around a sprawling arrangement of white hydrangeas that formed a giant YSL logo from an aerial vantage point.
For Anthony Vaccarello's Spring Summer 2026 collection for the house, this was the starting point for the collection, alongside a surplus of leather. There were leather bombers layered over pencil skirts and silk blouses with oversized pussy bows—an accent Vaccarello has experimented with previously—paired with dagger-point sling backs and great big "Like A Prayer" era gold cross earrings that dripped with pearls. Leather military caps took Vaccarello back to referencing Mapplethorpe and gay cruising which felt pleasantly subversive given the state of things.
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See also: a procession of slippery nylon looks. Trench coats and dresses with Vaccarello's growlingly signature oversized shoulders in shiny clingy nylon that felt almost organza-like with the way it moved. These were followed by evening gowns in the same material which floated like water and featured great big skirts and ruffles and puffed sleeves that felt both Rococo-esque and slightly Italian glamoured. Instead of panniers and crinolines Vaccarello left little to the imagination underneath the sheer garments.
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These pieces perhaps nodded to Yves Saint Laurent's grand couture gowns from his heyday, and also the subversion of the 1970s and 80s in which the designer famously experimented with inserting a sense of sexual charge into his designs. Vaccarello has held a particular fascination with '80s power dressing for many seasons now, and he doesn't seem to be slowing down any time soon.
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A key theme here was nudity and permissiveness. How does the French woman do it? Vaccarello described this season's Saint Laurent woman as a “Louche aristocrat”. She is strong, fun, reckless, gathering up her billowing evening gown that reveals just enough or stalking through the gardens clad in leather. For another season, Vaccarello provides the blueprint of the woman so many of us want to be.
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