Saint Laurent takes over modernist masterpiece Neue Nationalgalerie to show latest menswear collection

Berlin’s contemporary art museum Neue Nationalgalerie – defined by its glass-and-steel pavilion that hovers above the vast below-ground space where most of the art is held – was one of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s final projects, first opened in 1968. Yesterday evening (12 June 2023), in a continuing world tour of his menswear collections for the house, Anthony Vaccarello of Saint Laurent took over the gallery to host his Spring/Summer 2024 men’s collection (previous shows have taken place in Morocco and Los Angeles, as well as Paris last season). 

The clarity of its design – since renovated by David Chipperfield Architects in a six-year process that culminated in 2021 – reflects Vaccarello’s ongoing desire to distill and perfect his own menswear codes. At his previous menswear show, the designer noted that the O-shaped set in the newly opened Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection gallery in Paris was ‘a symbol of perfection and purity of execution... a recurring, pertinent thread at Saint Laurent.’ At the time, he described the collection as one of ‘ultra-focus’, a continuing exploration of silhouette; namely, the juxtaposition of sharply drawn tailoring and something more louche and diaphanous, which he accounted to the growing synergy between his mens- and womenswear collections. 

Saint Laurent S/S 2024 menswear at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie

Amid the Neue Nationalgalerie’s upper pavilion, here swathed with vast curtains that alluded to a sense of performance (‘dark curtains and smooth surfaces create a dialogue with the building's distinctive grid frame’, said the house), Vaccarello continued to blur the lines of gender in a collection titled ‘Each Man Kills the Things He Loves’. ‘Ideas examined in recent Saint Laurent collections are reprised and developed,’ read the collection notes. ‘Foremost a free interplay between elements considered masculine and feminine. Echoes of the house’s last womenswear presentation emerge in new configurations.’

One such look was a series of plunging scoop-neck satin tank tops worn beneath a broad-shouldered tailored jacket. In the womenswear show, a similar combination had been teamed with a skirt for a suggestion of both sensuality and power; here, Vaccarello teamed them with a narrow high-waist cigarette trouser. ‘It all starts with this gesture,’ said the house at the time of distinct padded shoulders, a silhouette which continued in the menswear collection, including a slew of broad tuxedo-style eveningwear (crisp white shirting and bow ties beneath) and trench coats sliced along the back and amplified at the shoulder. 

Elsewhere, the house noted an ‘unexpected lightness’ – trailing mousseline and silk shirting wrapped elegantly around the neck or crisscrossed the body, while asymmetric one-shouldered tops fell away into a train of fabric below. Leopard prints and polka dots recalled some of Yves Saint Laurent’s most memorable collections, a reflection of the house founder’s innate understanding of sensuality and desire.  

The collection came with an accompanying printed publication about the Neue Nationalgalerie, which would be Mies Van der Rohe’s only post-Second World War building – it was constructed between 1965 and 1968 – and is largely considered a masterpiece of modernist design. In it, Saint Laurent describes the architect’s ‘distillation of building elements into an essential language’. It is an apt parallel to Vaccarello’s own pursuit of rigour and clarity in both his mens- and womenswear collections; the search for an essential language of Saint Laurent.

ysl.com