Six years ago, in an interview for
Le Figaro
, Anthony Vaccarello, the artistic director of
Saint Laurent
, told us: “
During castings, Helmut Newton asked his models to show their breasts.
The body was the object of his work.
In 2018, this would be impossible.
» In 2024, this has become the norm.
Popstars, influencers and actresses of the Netflix generation take the excuse of any red carpet to bring out the “naked dress”.
Tuesday evening, before his winter 2025 show, the designer in turn gave transparency as inspiration.
Something that could no longer be justified in the house of the man who invented the garment that undresses you, namely the haute couture cigaline dress of 1966 and the muslin blouse of 1968. Major pieces in the history of fashion which (and it's a pure coincidence) are on view until August 25 at the Saint Laurent museum, avenue Marceau.
Read alsoAnd Yves Saint Laurent invented the transparent dress
Because he says that "
no one needs yet another coat
", and because he does not want to "
play the game of current fashion",
Vaccarello therefore offers a "Nude Look"... almost unwearable.
Not for questions of indecency, as we have seen, breasts and buttocks are now in the foreground, but because this collection is made entirely of tights.
Yes, tights that we usually slip under our skirts, but which have been cut and assembled here by the Saint Laurent workshops.
They thought the matter was impossible as this material is fragile but were also very excited by this challenge which requires haute couture knowledge!
“A draped blouse requires up to four days of work, thirteen pairs of tights for the top, three for the bottom, three for the neck...,”
he explains.
Everyone makes transparency from muslin or lace.
I wanted a common, almost cheap material.
Saint Laurent must be electric, dangerous, for the workshops, for me, for the client... These blouses, these dresses can slip on like tights.
There is something ephemeral about these clothes.
Yes, the dress can tear
,” he confirms without batting an eyelid.
The fact that it is difficult to convert into ready-to-wear is not its subject.
Saint Laurent fall-winter 2024 show.
Alessandro Lucioni / Alessandro Lucioni
In the ranks of Fashion Week, opinions are divided - that's what Vaccarello is looking for, who prefers whether we love it or hate it rather than lukewarm.
Some criticize the absence of clothes (with the exception of two rubber pea coats and two soft suits) even though the brand has among the most beautiful suit jackets.
The others loved these women (very, very thin) crossing the immense room hung with green brocade in a trail of Opium.
They hypnotize in their draped pussy-bow blouse and straight skirt hemmed with a braid below the knee, perched on platforms, fake fur on their arms, their hair caught in a turban also in tights, large clips in their ears.
Seeing them walking on the wet asphalt, we think of Deneuve in the Belle de Jour
brothel
, of the couple of women, one naked, the other in a tuxedo, from rue Aubriot de Newton, of the Scandale collection of 1971 , and its women of easy virtue under the Occupation... Perversion is part of the cult of the house, we can be annoyed by it, but these silhouettes with such a strange and particular fall, in burgundy, caramel, beige, green, bronze, electric blue, raspberry... are to die for.