The modernism of Saint Laurent's SS24 collection

Mies van der Rohe, the architect who built the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin where Saint Laurent's latest show was held yesterday, was one of the leading exponents of modernist architecture, a style that favored the use of steel, glass and concrete, that rejected ornamentation and for which form had to minimalistically follow function. An architecture that, in its absolute essentiality and lightness, was created to stand the test of time and the passage of fashions - a concept that Anthony Vaccarello has avowedly followed for the French brand's latest SS24 collection. Continuing in a straight line with the trajectory already traced in past seasons, this collection, too, saw a reshuffling of men's and women's codes and defined the brand's elongated and strictly bichromatic silhouette. Missing, glasses aside, were the accessories-the show seemed to want to avoid any distraction and hammer into the minds of the viewers, look after look, a simple silhouette that, precisely because of its refined and concise clarity, can only take root in the imagination through continuous repetition and subtle variation. The idea, in short, is crystal clear - the execution flawless.

Black boots, very long legs wrapped in impeccably cut pants, flowing satin tops and shirts, and aviator glasses that look like something out of a video by The Sisters of Mercy: this is the uniform of the new Saint Laurent man - or perhaps we should say Saint Laurent "boy" since a good number of these looks, except perhaps the tuxedos and 80s power suits, are designed to dress ephebic bodies with unblemished skin and toned triceps. It's interesting, however, to note how Saint Laurent's 1980s codes, extremely dramatic and stately but often also bulging, pompous, and far too stuffy, have been stripped to the bone by Vaccarello, who nonetheless captured their essence and charm. Paradoxically, this idea of sumptuous minimalism conceived by Vaccarello is grounded precisely in the brand's most opulent and ornate era, the one that would shortly precede its collapse in the early 1990s. Perhaps mindful of an era of the brand that is now iconic but at the time deeply unstable, the creative director conceived a vision, reflected as much in the looks as in the location, that was not one of gaunt austerity, on the contrary, but of clean, tight presentation and ensembles in which the allure of a single element (the draping, the texture of the materials) could flash purely, without the entanglements of overloaded styling.

But beyond the backless tops, sheer chiffons, trainers and satin tank tops low-cut to the navel, we discover traces of a sensual and much more wearable minimalism. Perhaps going against general opinion, we can say that the most striking look of the show consists of a square, thick-necked white satin T-shirt tucked into a pair of high-waisted pants with a thick buckled belt and the ubiquitous boots. It is a look that exemplifies how cut and materials can endlessly sublimate an incredibly portable ensemble - a design so simple and sophisticated at once as to seem almost effortless, an unequivocal yet also profoundly everyday luxury in which Vaccarello's vision is compressed and focused to the nth degree. Perhaps this is the direction in which the creative director should take the brand's menswear, moving more conceptual eveningwear to the margins and trying to rework and elevate a concrete everyday wardrobe proposition through codes that have never been more defined, strong and precise.