Anthony Vaccarello’s 7 sexiest collections at Saint Laurent

Following his shimmering swan song at Paris Fashion Week, Anthony Vaccarello’s departure from Saint Laurent was confirmed this morning (October 9). During his decade-long tenure, the Belgian designer slowly reshaped the brand, setting out a seductive vision of liberated sensuality in languid, body-skimming silhouettes and androgynous tailoring, designed for slipping out into the sultry Paris night – Eiffel Tower glittering in the background, of course. 

Vaccarello’s most successful designs were rooted in physical sensation. These are clothes for feeling good as much as for looking good. After all, Vaccarello’s Saint Laurent woman “isn’t trying to please anyone or have sex with someone else,” he told Bella Freud last month on the Fashion Neurosis podcast. “She can have sex with herself. She doesn’t need someone to do whatever she wants.” 

Her wardrobe is her toolkit for pursuing pleasure and expressing her hidden desires. Sharp officewear is paired with dominatrix latex or sadomasochistic leather to complete the vision of what he calls “bourgeois perversity” – the delicate balance between elegance and abandon, between acceptable ‘good taste’ and a pulse-racing fetish. Vaccarello’s era was marked by unapologetic sensuality and high octane glamour, so in light of his departure we’re taking a look back at the seven sexiest collections that defined his tenure.

When Vaccarello took over the house in 2016, he had a complex legacy to tackle. His predecessor, Hedi Slimane, had controversially slashed the ‘Yves’ from Yves Saint Laurent in a bid to modernise the brand. To put his own stamp on the new era, Vaccarello reintroduced the classic YSL branding in a bold fashion, hanging a massive neon logo from a construction crane above the show venue. The logo was subtly reintroduced in the collection, too, with the now-iconic Opyum shoe replacing its classic stiletto heel with the interlocking YSL logo. This agenda-setting accessory was an instant commercial success. It signalled the shift from Slimane’s West Coast-inspired indie grunge aesthetic to a more grown up vision of afterdark Parisian glam. There were hints of the codes that would become Vaccarello staples: exaggerated 80s power suiting, dark, seductive fabrics and barely-there, leg lengthening micro-minis.

Saint Laurent’s AW20 collection was Vacarello’s most sexual up to that point. It was here that he coined the phrase “bourgeous perversity” – think Catherine Deneuve in Luis Buñuel’s erotic psychodrama Belle de Jour, which was costume designed by Monsieur Saint Laurent himself. For the AW20 collection, Vaccarello toyed with the tension between good and bad taste. Tailored double breasted blazers and prim, pussy-bowed blouses were paired with latex leggings, thigh-high boots, halter neck tops and ultra-tight turtlenecks that looked like lustrous second skins.

Despite the collection’s sadomasochistic elements, this collection marked a departure from Vacarello’s all black pallette, introducing lurid, jewel-toned purples, reds and blues. Presented mere weeks before we plunged into the sexless months of lockdown, this served as a reminder of the power of the erotic imagination. 

Out of the bedroom and into the boardroom. Vaccarello had been playing with 80s power silhouettes since his debut, but the AW23 collection is the most distilled version of this vision. Razor-sharp power dressing was reimagined as a tool for dominance and seduction. Blazers commanded physical space while knee-grazing pencil skirts came with suggestive slits down the middle. This collection helped catapult corpcore and office siren into industry-wide trends. A few seasons later, Bella Hadid opened the SS25 dressed as Yves Saint Laurent himself – in a black double-breasted suit and thick-rimmed glasses – encapsulating once more the sensual androgyny at the heart of Vaccarello’s time at the brand. 

Opaque tights are rarely erotic. Usually, they’re a necessary evil against the cold. But, with the opening look of his AW24 collection, Vaccerello changed that, reworking that same material into a sheer micro-mini bodycon dress. What followed was a series of transparent looks in nude tones that walked the line between underwear and outerwear, each crafted from the exact same fabric used for tights. Vaccarello said he was inspired by Bianca Censori and the omnipresence of yoga pants worn on the street, but also by the famous Jean Louis dress that Marilyn Monroe wore to sing happy birthday to JFK – and Kim Kardashian wore to the 2024 Met Gala. In his hands, this aesthetic was transformed into a modern, sensual luxury. Tights tear, ladder and fall apart easily, but that was the point. Vaccarello was interested in fleeting ephemerality. “Everyone was trying to do more and more commercial pieces,” he said “and I really wanted people to dream about something unrealistic.” And, suddenly, nude tights became something to dream about. 

Berlin has been home to some of the world’s greatest androgynous fashion icons which, of course, means home to some of the greatest tailoring. For SS24 men’s, Vaccarello landed in Berlin, paying homage to the likes of Marlene Dietrich and David Bowie through precise, gender-fluid tailoring. Skinny tuxedos, structured shoulders and plunging necklines proved that the Saint Laurent man is just as sexually liberated as the Saint Laurent woman. 

The AW25 men’s collection was inspired by an imagined meeting between legendary photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and Monsieur Saint Laurent. The resulting looks married classic tailoring with fetishistic leather – “respectable on the top, but dirty on the way down”, Vaccarello quipped. Office appropriate blazers were paired with kinky, thigh-high leather wader boots. Patrick Bateman-esque suits were covered by weathered, leather aviator jackets. For this collection, straitlaced virtue was nothing more than a façade. 

The way the body moves beneath your clothes can be a sensual act. In modern dancer and choreographer Martha Graham’s 1930 piece, Lamentation, she moves around inside a tubular, jersey fabric in an expression of grief. For Vaccarello, however, this was the starting inspiration not for an exploration of grief, but of nocturnal Parisian elegance. For SS23’s women’s show, the designer went back into the archive, reviving the hooded capuche dress that Yves Saint Laurent helped popularise in the mid-80s. These languid, gossamer silk dresses were worn with oversized, masculine tailoring, once again marrying masculine codes with feminine sensuality. These jewel toned hooded gowns quickly became a red carpet favourite among Kate Moss, Jenna Ortega and Beyonce.