Anthony Vaccarello returned to Paris Fashion Week yesterday (March 3) with Saint Laurent’s latest runway, the AW26 ready-to-wear show. While the collection “focuses on the house at its most foundational”, it wasn’t just an exercise in nostalgia. Through “unerring and confident repetition,” Vaccarello aimed to create an artistic statement on what Saint Laurent has always stood for, but also what his own vision for the house stands for today.

In keeping with this spirit, tailoring was foundational to the collection. There were several single and double-breasted black suits, shaded with “echoes of the severity of the late 1970s and early 1980s”, as the show notes put it. The show began with eight of these suits, sharp reimaginings of Le Smoking, a black tuxedo for women that is one of Yves Saint Laurent’s most iconic designs, and celebrates its sixtieth anniversary this year (at the time of its debut in 1966, Le Smoking’s androgyny was considered radical, even liberating). The colour palette throughout the show leaned black, with Vaccarello adding six more smoking suits for a grand total of 14 – although there were splashes of burnt sienna, teal, brown and French blue. The overall effect was one of austere elegance, complemented by the stripped-back, modernist set design, complete with glass, leather and wood.

It’s not all quite so restrained, however: at the more baroque end, there were lacquered lace dresses with a hint of jazz age decadence, several sumptuous faux-fur coats and a shimmering, translucent vinyl trench coat, with sculptural golden jewellery appearing throughout. Glamour, as Saint Laurent has always known, comes in many forms.

Beyond Saint Laurent’s own storied history, Vaccarello has looked further afield for creative inspiration, drawing in particular from the worlds of cinema and literature. One such influence is the 1971 film Max et Les Ferrailleurs (Max and the Junkmen), and its starring actress, Romy Schneider. He also took inspiration from the work of two canonical queer authors: Tennessee Williams and his 1950 novella The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone, and Gore Vidal’s 1948 novel The City and the Pillar, which at the time was hugely transgressive for its frank depiction of homosexuality. With these disparate references, Vaccarello aims to place the emphasis on “the beauty of intimacy and vulnerability” and celebrate “profound personal feelings over sensationalised, emotionally hollow spectacle.”

Scroll through the gallery at the top of the page for the full collection