It may be 40 degrees in Paris, but no, that’s not the smell of BBQs filling your nostrils – it’s Saint Laurent’s latest menswear show, which saw smoke billowing from inside the city’s Bourse de Commerce building. Today (June 23), marked the first official day of the French capital’s SS27 menswear shows, with Saint Laurent delivering the most impressive front row of the season so far. Here’s everything you missed from the smoky yet star-studded YSL SS27 menswear show. 

A SEVERE CASE OF BRAIN FOG 

OK, OK. To be more precise, that smoke was actually fog. And not just any old fog, but an immersive installation titled Cloud #07156, created by Japanese artist Fujiko Nakaya. Made from water vapour, the wafting sculpture was not only a backdrop for the collection, but an active participant in it. As emphasised in the show notes, models performed a choreographed performance that saw them weave in and out of the fog, disappearing at times, before reappearing once again on the other side of the room. The space continued to fill with vapour throughout the duration of the show – as if the humidity in Paris wasn’t bad enough already. 

FASHION’S MOST COMMITTED FROW 

It goes without saying that Saint Laurent and creative director Anthony Vaccarello have some powerful friends, but today, they proved their loyalty and commitment to the brand too. Despite the heat, not only did a slew of celebs show up, they came clad in heavy black leather jackets (Rami Malek), ankle-length dust jackets (Yung Lean), and even sweltering, boil-in-the-bag, PVC rain macks (Connor Storrie). 

Elsewhere, the major lineup of guests – also no doubt silently sweating – included Austin Butler, Kate Moss, Arca, Joe Alwyn, Kento Yamazaki, Daisy Edgar-Jones and Amelia Gray, meanwhile Charli xcx stayed true to her love of leather, wearing a calf-length crimson cocktail dress. 

After everyone had been seated inside, the guest of honour made her entrance. Madonna was the undeniable star of the frow, ushered in wearing a sticky, coated lace dress, and squeezing in between Charli xcx and Connor Storrie. Together, the trio resembled a gay man’s Mount Rushmore. 

THE TALENTED MR VACCARELLO 

The collection itself was all about the omission of specific elements, acting as a manifesto for knowing less and leaving some things to the imagination. A physical antidote to the endless scroll, the show notes described Vaccarello’s personal quest to reject “our constant need for more drama, more noise, more attention – and what happens when we choose to turn away from it.” His muses this season came in the form of French writer Marguerite Duras (“whose writing found meaning in what remained unsaid”), model and designer Tina Chow (“whose style embraced reduction”), as well as Mr. Ripley, the fictional character created by Patricia Highsmith and played onscreen by Matt Damon (“whose outward composure concealed a far more complicated interior life”). 

This manifested on the runway with physical omissions from several looks. Suits appeared in the form of blazers with no shirts, or simply as a waistcoat and necktie. Some shirts were rendered almost pointless, nude in shade and completely transparent, leaving only a hazy outline around the torso. Meanwhile, the general palette was mostly neutral tones – stone, grey, black, brown and beige. 

Luckily, toward the end of the show, as the room became increasingly smoky and the clothes became harder to see, the last several looks appeared in gleaming shades of gold, shimmering their way through the fog. Explained by the designer, this was an exercise in spinning gold from straw: “A transformation of the utilitarian trench into something extraordinary while remaining practical.” Beyond just the gold looks, it was a collection that cut through the fog, both physically and metaphorically.