This year is the 60th anniversary of Yves Saint Laurent’s first Smoking. That terminology might need some translation these days. In 2026 parlance, it’s the black tuxedo suit, tailored for a woman. Back in 1966 it represented—even fomented—a social revolution, abetting women in their assertion of equality to men.
Countless designers have played around with tuxes ever since, but as Anthony Vaccarello reminded us again, Saint Laurent is its rightful spiritual home. After exploring massively-volumed evening dresses last season, he opened his fall show with eight dark trouser suits with nothing underneath them, and had added a total of 14 by the time the show was finished.
Rigor and focus is everything to this creative director. Backstage, he was saying that he’d taken the sloping shoulder line from his latest men’s tailoring, but made everything else fluid and unlined in his women’s suits. The repetition of these looks inevitably led the eye to the hair—side parted, gelled, pulled back into a bun—and to Pat McGrath’s smoky eyeshadow, cheekbone shading and glossy dark red lips. An accurate simulation of Saint Laurent makeup as seen in Helmut Newton photos and the brand’s ads from the 1970s and ’80s.
Fetish-y decadent hardcore chic hit another register in Vaccarello’s counterpoint to the Smoking: another long series of silicone-covered lingerie lace body-dresses, interspersed with two high-shine rubber raincoats. Like Demna’s Gucci in Milan, it read as a declaration that sex is back on the fashion agenda, and so is a singular body type.
