At 9pm sharp yesterday evening (28 January 2025), Anthony Vaccarello staged his latest menswear show in the monolithic Tadao Ando-designed concrete rotunda of the Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection art gallery. Eschewing the traditional menswear calendar, which concluded in Paris this past Sunday, he instead chose to show during Haute Couture Week – a suggestion of the status that Vaccarello has brought to the house’s menswear line during his nine-year-tenure at Saint Laurent, which here drew Steve Lacy, Zoe Kravitz and Charlotte Gainsbourg to its starry front row.
Darkened save for a number of low-hanging chandeliers – a nod to the ballroom of Paris’ Intercontinental Hotel, where Yves Saint Laurent would house his couture shows from 1975 to 2001 – guests sat around the edges of the vast circular space, reminiscent of the secret menswear show the house held at the gallery in March 2024 (this season, the show was a less guarded secret, though was still a surprise until a week or so before). A worn-away parquet floor, meanwhile, was designed to evoke the ‘opulent salons of the past’, with Vaccarello saying he enjoyed the juxtaposition with Ando’s ‘minimalist lines and cool surfaces’.
Saint Laurent Menswear A/W 2025
Indeed, the idea of juxtaposition ran through the collection, epitomised by a fantasy mash-up of two ‘distinct personalities’, ‘an aesthete hungry for new experiences and a steady literary mastermind’. In the looks, this meant wide-shouldered bookish blazers, striped shirts and ties – reminiscent of a particular kind of bourgeois Parisian dress – worn with contrasting leather trousers and jackets, even thigh-high wader boots, which lent a suggestion of fetish and kink.
The American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, known for his sensually charged portraits of men taken during the 1980s, was one of Vaccarello’s inspirations. The designer said he imagined Mapplethorpe’s countercultural wardrobe clashed with Yves Saint Laurent’s classic Rive Gauche uniform of the same era. He called the collection one of ‘menacing, seductive elegance’ led by contrasts between ‘sombre and light, soft and firm, voluminous and tapered’.
In typical Vaccarello style, there was a powerful singularity to the collection’s look, which largely saw 1980s-inflected double-breasted tailored jackets on the top half, and leather trousers or boots on the bottom. Towards the end, he introduced flourishes of feathers, which crept around the necklines of overcoats or made up voluminous jackets, giving the illusion of fur.
As with the rest of the collection, they trod a masterful line between the classicism of Parisian menswear and something strange and seductive, a mood of carnal desire which has come to define Vaccarello’s vision for the house. Or, in Saint Laurent parlance, ‘a productive tension between temperamental opposites’ – a fantasy meeting between Mapplethorpe and Yves Saint Laurent, two men who defined the 1980s.
Follow our coverage of Haute Couture Week S/S 2025.
-
How to be butch: Clark Henley’s sharp, satirical and playful manual is back in printThe 1982 classic, ‘The Butch Manual: The Current Drag and How to Do It’, full of tongue-in-cheek advice, is available once again
-
Aston Martin goes goth, ramping up power, poise and dark glamour with the new Vantage SThese moody images mark the debut of the latest model out of Gaydon, the dynamically focused Aston Martin Vantage S
-
After decades capturing the world’s fashion-set, photographer Johnny Rozsa picks up a paint brushIn his first exhibition of paintings, the New York-based artist celebrates the vibrancy of Tangier while rediscovering a familiar creative outlet
-
The standout shows of Paris Fashion Week Men’s S/S 2026: Hermès to Craig GreenWallpaper* picks the very best of Paris Fashion Week Men’s S/S 2026, from Véronique Nichanian’s portrait of summer in the city for Hermès to Craig Green’s return to the Paris runway
-
Saint Laurent transports from ‘Paris to Fire Island’ for escapist S/S 2026 menswear collectionA mood of ease and escapism infused Anthony Vaccarello’s latest men’s collection for Saint Laurent, shown in Paris on Tuesday afternoon, which looked towards Fire Island and the queer artists that used it as a haven in the 1970s
-
Inside the Ourika Community Gardens, YSL Beauty’s Moroccan EdenAt the base of Morocco’s Atlas Mountains, YSL Beauty's gardens are tended by local women in a bid by the brand to give back to the country which so inspired its founder
-
Splash out! This summer’s must-have accessories take us to the beachSummer’s mood of escapism infuses Wallpaper’s pick of the season’s best accessories for men and women, from micro bags to wraparound sunglasses
-
Sex, scent and celebrity: what perfume ads of the 2000s reveal about consumer culture todayIn All-American Ads of the 2000s, the latest instalment of Taschen’s book series chronicling print advertising across ten decades, a section on perfume is a striking precursor for consumerism in the age of social media
-
The best beauty products of the month, from a ‘revolutionary’ Dyson hairdryer to zingy Hermès nail polishThe best beauty products of the month, selected by Wallpaper*, include Dyson’s life-changing new hairdryer, zingy springtime nail polish by Hermès and skin barrier saviours by the likes of Dr Barbara Sturm
-
The best fashion moments at Milan Design Week 2025Scarlett Conlon discovers the finest fashion moments at Salone del Mobile and Milan Design Week 2025, from Loewe’s artist-designed teapots to The Row’s first home collection
-
Express yourself: why S/S 2025 heralds a new era of fashion eclecticismIntroducing the March 2025 Style Issue of Wallpaper*, fashion features editor Jack Moss explores the mood of transformation, reinvention and eclecticism which informed the S/S 2025 collections
