Anthony Vaccarello Dissects Saint Laurent Lore and Legend

"Yves Saint Laurent was a designer shaped by his desires. I don't necessarily mean sexual - although, frankly, there was plenty of that in both his life and his work. But rather that in his fixations and obsessions, there was always a fetishistic quality. How about the Oedipal complex of his constant resurrection of his mother's wartime wardrobe? Or his love of the work of Marcel Proust, so intense that Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé actually bought a Normandy château (the choice summer retreat of Proustian high society) where every room was themed after a different character of À la recherche du temps perdu. There's a story that one day, a maid cut a swathe of calla lilies for a vase rather than the appropriately Proustian Casablanca lilies. Saint Laurent decapitated every one of them to demonstrate his displeasure."

"Anthony Vaccarello, in turn, has a fetish - his is for Yves Saint Laurent. At least, it's his fashion fetish, his shows serving to demonstrate his compulsive knowledge of the details of Saint Laurent's life and work, his dedication, a mania even. As with his recent shows, his Spring/Summer 2026 Saint Laurent collection dissected a selection of Saint Laurent preoccupations - Proust being one, leather being another, the others Saint Laurent's bold shoulders, his love of filmy mousseline, and the strict lines of the trench coat translated from the masculine to the feminine. All are couched in Saint Laurent lore and legend - how about that leather jacket, to begin with?"

Yves Saint Laurent's creative impulses were driven by intense fixations and fetishistic passions, from an Oedipal revival of his mother's wartime wardrobe to a consuming devotion to Marcel Proust. Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé purchased a Normandy château and themed rooms after characters from À la recherche du temps perdu, with anecdotes of strict enforcement of Proustian detail. Anthony Vaccarello channels a comparable fetish for Saint Laurent, translating those obsessions into clothes. The Spring/Summer 2026 Saint Laurent collection revisits Proustian motifs, leather, bold shoulders, filmy mousseline and trench-coat lines, recalling Saint Laurent's pioneering Chicago perfecto for Dior in 1960.

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