TRIANGULATION

To define a contemporary vocabulary for Saint Laurent Spring/Summer ’20, creative director Anthony Vaccarello employed Mick Jagger’s rocker cool, Serge Gainsbourg’s Parisian nonchalance, and the brand’s founder’s love for Marrakesh.

- Wilson Lim

For Anthony Vaccarello’s second menswear showing for Saint Laurent Spring/Summer ’20, the creative director pulled out all the stops and gathered the international press at Malibu beach. The sandy location brought to mind Miley Cyrus’s Malibu, a song about rekindled passions in life – not purely because the scenography bear the same name, but it also set the mind to wonder if the romantic background would be an inspiration for Vaccarello to introduce a refreshing beach-themed dimension to the French house famed for its Parisian-rocker chic.

That fleeting thought was truncated when Cyrus walked across the runway, holding hands with thenfiancé, Liam Hemsworth. The show’s star-studded roll call continued with Keanu Reeves, Hailey Bieber, G-Eazy, Charlie Puth, and Men’s Folio cover star JB of GOT7. This impressive group front-row attendees served as a prelude to the exciting show ahead.

To further set the scene, the audience had been seated to face the Pacific Ocean, and they were informed that the show had been postponed to an hour later. The reason behind the delay would later become apparent as the show would only begin when the Sun was setting beyond the horizon. Dramatics were high as music was not piped, so the sounds of lapping waves became the only soundtrack. Then, a lone seagull flew across the seascape to complete the moment of tranquillity.