In a scorching hot Paris, the Maison’s Spring/Summer 2027 collection showed the flex in a pared-back wardrobe.
At Saint Laurent, creative director Anthony Vaccarello has mastered a rare breed of menswear. As sharp and imposing as it is slinky and seductive, you just have to look at the brand’s roster of very famous friends to see it in action – namely Connor Storrie, who pulled up in a latex trench and leggings to the show yesterday at Paris’s Bourse de Commerce. Or Austin Butler, with just a blazer keeping him from being topless – the sans-shirt approach proved a savvy move, if nothing else, when faced with the record-breaking meteorological events of this fashion week.
With the brand’s Spring/Summer 2027 collection came a change of course; more stripped-back, restrained, withheld. Out of the haze created by Fujiko Nakaya’s immersive fog installation, single-breasted three-button jackets were cut higher on the body for a more streamlined silhouette, followed by single-button iterations, offering a softer slant on Vaccarello’s power-shouldered suiting. The chilling out continued with tight T-shirts tucked into high-waisted trousers, waistcoats worn as vests, and ribbed V-neck sweaters all fitted to the body in a way that took basics deep into sexy afters territory. The transparency continued through see-through (and sweaty) slimmed-down lace ups and boots.
Courtesy of Saint Laurent
Next up came pastel-hued track jackets with yolked shoulders, which isn’t as weird as you might think, given Mr Saint Laurent’s knack for taking everyday garments left-field, in the name of the elevated and the high-fashion. In 2026 – and in the midst of a scorching 40 degree Paris – sportswear is part of the fashion conversation in ways that it wasn’t when the brand’s founder was at work in the 20th century’s second half. Here, we’re seeing Vaccarello’s interpretation of how the Maison would have approached these types of garments. Elsewhere trench coats were seen in gold, less by way of opulence and more as a crowning hue to the high-function garments that they are.
This collection was about doing more with less, with Vaccarello drawing on figures like Marguerite Duras (a writer whose power came in what she left unsaid), Tina Chow, and the fictional Mr Ripley – all people who operated with restraint in matters of appearance, while concealing a more complex persona beneath. These Saint Laurent guys are hot, but they’re not doing the most. Because there’s power in holding back, refusing adornment and leaving the mind’s curiosity to do the seduction.
