The fashion imagined for so many years by Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé is chock full of iconic pieces. If there’s one thing that never ceased to inspire this great brand, it’s Paris and the Eiffel Tower. For his second runway at the head of Saint Laurent, Italian designer Anthony Vaccarello set up the YSL runway on the Trocadero’s fountain – with the Eiffel Tower as the backdrop, getting ready to light up. “I want to tell the story of Saint Laurent, that of Paris – nothing more than that,” explained Vaccarello. In the grandeur of Paris, the looks that went down the runway on September 26 payed a particular homage to a fashion that has long beat at the heart of the French capital.
Without ever forcing, Anthony Vaccarello uses a lot of Yves Saint Laurent’s vocabulary. The Spring/Summer 2018 collection is a journey into the most artistic of couturier’s couture. This journey opens with memories of Marrakech, that he discovered in 1966, and ends with the traditions of Saint Laurent’s ateliers, going up until 2002. Look #80 captures all the breadth of this tradition. The legendary pointed hat was last used in the Fall/Winter 2001 collection, then directed by the master himself. The tuxedo jacket with exaggerated lapels demonstrates our era’s desire for opulence within lines already explored by Yves. Finally, the brand’s absolute icon appears: a see-through blouse in a floating dotted swiss.
This uniquely Parisian sensuality and chic brought Vaccarello to say: “This Saint Laurent girl – she likes to have fun. She’s not depressed. She wants to live life to the fullest!” The eroticism and hedonism in this collection recall the Saint Laurent aura of the 80s. This was the decade when Yves definitively anchored his glamorous but liberating wardrobe in the international landscape. At the foot of the Eiffel Tower, Kate Moss, Lenny Kravitz, Lou Doillon, and Courtney Love attended this extreme and bold declaration of Saint Laurent’s leadership, with a fashion boasting more suggestive than overt eroticism. This is the work of “l’amour fou, l’amour de deux fous”, as the late Pierre Bergé once said.
See-Through by YSL: Key dates
1966 : For the Summer collection Yves Saint Laurent makes the female chest partially visible thanks to a chiffon dress, in navy blue organdy, who’s sequined see-through cigaline embroidery covered the breast.
1967 : A first scandal: Catherine Deneuve in Bunuel’s “Belle de Jour” wears a black veil in organza with transparencies, from Yves Saint Laurent where the full body is visible.
1968 : The nude look is born. Saint Laurent designs the most emblematic piece of that year: a completely transparent chiffon dress with a belt made of ostrich feathers named the “See-through dress” (or blouse).
1968 : Yves Saint-Laurent explores the concept of women’s body through a bikini wedding dress for the SS collection.
1969 : For her victory at the 1969 Academy Award Barbra Streisand wears an Arnold Scaasi tuxedo-naked look admittedly inspired to Saint Laurent “See-through dress“.
1969 : Jean Birkin wears a short “see-through” dress for the premiére of “Slogan”. She will become an YSL muse.
1970s : After the scandal and a first refusal from the American and foreign magazines, the “See-through” look starts to appear everywhere: here the “See-through” is portrayed by Helmut Newton.
1999 : The See-through black evolves: Naomi Campbell presents a navy blue see-through top for Yves Saint Laurent.
2002 : For the last couture collection of his glorious career at the Pompidou Centre in Paris Yves Saint Laurent chooses to revisit his legendary “See-through” blouse and dress.
2010 : Forty years later after its creation, Laetitia Casta renders homage to Yves Saint-Laurent “See-through blouse” by wearing his mythic dress during the 2010 Césars awards.
2014 : The former muse of Ysl Danielle Luquet de Saint Germain auctions her 12.000-pieces haute couture collection. The legendary “See-through” is sold for more than 110.000 Euros.
2014 : Hedi Slimane revisits some iconic pieces like Le Smocking and the See through blouse.
2015 : Hedi Slimane evolves the concept of the See-through blouse presenting the “Mono breast dress“.
2016 : Anthony Vaccarello expands the concept of nudity proposing a new version of the See-through blouse and of the Mono breast dress.
2017 : Anthony Vaccarello proposes the See-through blouse for man.
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