The voice of the night in Saint Laurent's FW26 collection Anthony Vaccarello explores the darkness of Paris

Practically forever, the Saint Laurent man has represented a mold of the style and personality of the brand's founder, the unforgettable Yves: the nocturnal Paris, the ambiguous midnight walks in the Tuileries gardens, the opiated and decadent evenings in Marrakech, the underground clubs where one smokes and might at any moment run into Betty Catroux dancing with a pair of black sunglasses. Connected to this universe is a very precise wardrobe, which we could describe as a vaguely fetish declination of 1980s power dressing, where the rigid men's suit melts away with silk scarves, accents of shiny black leather. 

This is the universe to which Vaccarello has returned for the FW26 collection of Saint Laurent, whose starting point is a classic of 1950s gay literature set in the sordid underbelly of Paris, Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin. Incidentally, it seems the book may soon become a film precisely thanks to the involvement of Vaccarello and the production studio inaugurated by the brand in 2023. But the collection was different from the latest presentations that Vaccarello has signed for menswear. But in what way?

The art of variation on the theme

Since around 2021, Saint Laurent's menswear collections have been presented as a continuous repetition of the same look subtly varied dozens of times with a seasonal theme ranging from androgyny to power dressing, up to certain ways of wearing a tie or pairing suits with extremely high black leather cuissards. An unusual choice but with clear logic: men go to Saint Laurent for sartorial pieces, leather jackets, boots and loafers – all classic pieces loaded with a nocturnal, androgynous aesthetic full of underground eroticism. 

With this show, however, Vaccarello has finally set aside his obsession with uniformity. The monomaniacal way of repeating the same look for an entire collection has now opened up to more dynamic variations, still concise and extremely coherent, but which have allowed the imagination to breathe. And so on a base of solid tailoring on which the show was based, in the form of the classic blazer with broad shoulders whose waist now cinches creating almost an hourglass shape, we finally saw the brand's extreme rigor soften into a more articulated wardrobe.

We have, as mentioned, the classic suits, doubled in versions of shiny black leather. On these have accumulated printed silk ties and pocket squares, sporty and pitch-black sunglasses, wonderful fur scarves and stoles that have progressively given way to more extravagant looks. Transparent and shimmering trench coats, striped shorts paired with shirts from whose hems emerge leather boots so tight they look like latex sadomaso suits, but also short cropped knitted sweaters with very deep round necklines, into which silk scarves plunge; high-neck chiffon tops that cling to the models' torsos like a lover's hands.

A new look taking shape?

Almost ten years after the start of his creative direction, Vaccarello has finally established and consolidated the ideal look of his man. It is a look, as we said at the beginning, very precise yet open to many different options within its relative limitations. And yesterday it was all on display in the front row: the suits, the fur accents, the sunglasses, the ties and even a whole series of darkly vivid colors that can adapt to almost any personality. Making a suit not look boring is a real feat, which fashion observers often overlook.

Specifically, the look with striped shirt, tie tucked between the buttons and sunglasses seems to have become a new paradigm for the brand's man, completely emancipated from past influences. It is a look that appears as the most sublimated and pure essence of all previous visions both of Pilati and Slimane, which in comparison seem almost too overloaded and commercial. Yet purity has become so much the hallmark of the brand that the styling flourishes almost seem alien, which during the show turned up blazer sleeves, mixed different pinstripe patterns, piled pocket squares on ties, exposed cuffs held by bracelets and left shirt collars half out and half in that appeared as an adherence to presentation trends more dominant in the industry. 

But perhaps these (albeit tiny) signs of conformity are the price to pay for a Saint Laurent man who steps out of an icy rigor that is indeed seductive but would soon risk lacking dynamism and vitality and thus wears broken suits, is not afraid of color contrasts and continues to wander at night with his eternal black sunglasses through the sleepy streets of Paris.