Anthony Vaccarello Takes a Defiant First Bow at Saint Laurent, Brings Back the Yves

Having announced he’d be suspending his namesake brand to focus on his new gig as creative director of Saint Laurent, Anthony Vaccarello embraced the storied label’s own history for his debut collection. Outside the abbey-turned-military office where the Spring 2017 show was staged, where Yves Saint Laurent first based his eponymous brand, and where Saint Laurent will slowly migrate as it’s restored, a massive YSL logo marquee dangled from a crane. Inside, that same logo adorned tops and formed the heels of shoes; the collection itself maintained Vaccarello’s voice — sexy, noirish, daring, with a few of his go-to models like Freja Beha Erichsen and Anja Rubik — molded to fit the Saint Laurent vision. (Still, there was a healthy dose of Slimane’s own preoccupation with the ’80s threading through the whole affair.) After all, it was a dress dating back to 1982 that sowed the first seeds of inspiration for the collection.