BEAUTY: Clothing--Saint Laurent

Well, regular readers, I had anticipated posting something--anything--from London Fashion Week but the schedule was so light, there was nothing to post about. I think each day had only maybe three events...and maybe one of those each day was an actual show. Honestly, I think LFW is on life support. Nothing to see here, move along. Let's see if it even exists next winter.

So while Pitti Uomo cycles through (I will be sharing some photos of the Peacocks of Pitti Uomo, as usual) and we wait for Milano Moda Uomo to start, Saint Laurent showed not on a schedule, and in Berlin. The show called "Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves" is a nod to the 1982 Rainer Werner Fassbinder film "Querelle". The inspiration and connections are many and cross back and forth between France and Germany...so hang on. The legendary gay French author and playwright Jean Genet wrote his novel QUERELLE DE BREST in 1945 (published anonymously in 1947 because of the gay subject matter, with illustrations by another legendary gay artist Jean Cocteau). The legendary gay German filmmaker Fassbinder made it into a film called "Querelle" starring Brad Davis as Querelle and the legendary French actress Jeanne Moreau. In it, Moreau sings a song called "Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves" based on a line from an Oscar Wilde poem. Current head of Saint Laurent Anthony Vaccarello showed his Spring Summer 2024 collection at Berlin’s newly renovated Neue Nationalgalerie designed by another legendary German, Mies van der Rohe. A classic Parisian house, Saint Laurent, started by a legendary gay fashion icon, now headed by a Belgian designer created a collection that is Teutonic vs. Gallic, and the mash up of what is known in French as tailleur, translated as "suit tailoring" and flou which means the fluid draping of unstructured garments. Hence the cross pollination of the exquisite architectural precision of Mies van der Rohe's steel and glass Parthenon and the flowing, silk and chiffon creations of this collection. Vaccarello has been working hard to do away with gendered clothing for both men and women; he actually sees a sort of middle silhouette that is neither masculine nor feminine. I love this idea of, not the feminization of men in clothing, but the promotion of true genderless dressing.

The immense shoulders on the tuxes and suits mirror the marble monoliths that hold up the ceiling at the museum. Such tension needs its opposite and the louche, off-the-shoulder blouses trailing long Isadora Duncan-like bows tied at the neck are a statement. But after the last Saint Laurent collection from Fall Winter '23-'24 at the imposing Bourse de Commerce in Paris, posted here where I observed that the attitude of the garments were steeped in a dramatic, darkly seductive power that is thrillingly approaching the Vampiric, we have landed in Berlin. And I still think they are all vampires. I mean, just listen to the tense, frightening soundtrack for the show. Overall, I get a little bit of "The Hunger" and a little bit of the recently remade "Interview With The Vampire." Watch the models with slicked-back 1920s hair stride through the space wearing dagger-sharp, heeled boots in the video below, while chamber versions of "Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves" plays...and notice how low the arms are on the aviator sunglasses, making them sit differently on the face. So inky black, so icy, so powerful, so ethereal, so indifferent, these Berlin Vampires. They'll drain ya sure as look at ya.

https://www.ysl.com/