NOUVELLES VAGUES
How Saint Laurent’s new campaign with Kate Moss is making a splash
Writer: Charlotte Clark
Long-term devotees of Saint Laurent and its founder Yves Saint-Laurent will be aware of a connection between the Parisian house and the wonders of the ocean. In the 1980s, its clients could deck themselves with jewellery from the Art of the Sea collection, including necklaces decorated with shells and gold-tone replicas of coral and sea creatures.
For WINTER 18, the brand’s creative director Anthony Vaccarello has gone with the flow, taking supermodel Kate Moss to an idyllic tropical beach. Moss was shot by Vaccarello’s image-makers of choice, Inez Van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, who capture her looking simultaneously carefree and pointedly seductive. The stills are accompanied by a short film, also by Inez & Vinoodh, with a romantic score by French composer Bruno Alexiu.
Like the duo of photographers, Moss is one of Vaccarello’s regular collaborators. In May 2018, she accompanied him to the Met Ball (the first time she attended the event in nearly a decade) in a black gown with a feather trim at the collar, walking the red carpet with some of Vaccarello’s other muses, including Amber Valletta and Anja Rubik.
For the new campaign, Moss dons a more colourful look – a fully sequined gown with a pink floral motif – and reclines across sand and rocks, the ocean lapping over her. The dress was part of the brand’s WINTER 18 show’s closing section, which included some 30 thigh-skimming party dresses. The soft sea background contrasts with the brutal modernity of the runway show’s setting, a vast, spotlight-illuminated hangar next to the Trocadéro.
The visuals mark the continuation of a fruitful collaboration: Moss had already appeared in a series of films for the house’s S/S18 collection. Those previous shorts had a retro appeal, showing Moss in black-and-white footage in Capri. There, she also appeared before the sea, suggesting the beach remains a recurring source of inspiration for Vaccarello, whose vision for Saint Laurent encapsulates a sense of heady escapism and high glamour. §
