From Morocco to Malibu

Anthony Vaccarello’s spring/summer 2020 collection is, at once, a nostalgic journey into the past as it is a bold voyage into modern menswear.

- Norman Tan

What do fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent, British rocker Mick Jagger and French singer Serge Gainsbourg have in common? In addition to being cultural iconoclasts in their own right, these three men also had a penchant for wearing silk shirts unbuttoned to the sternum. That is to say, they all oozed a sensual insouciance. A certain devil-may-care swagger. An implicit take-me-or-leaveme confidence.

And it is this rakish nonchalance that Anthony Vaccarello tapped into for his latest spring/summer 2020 menswear collection for Saint Laurent; albeit, as is de rigueur of the luxury French house, amped up with couture-level detailing,

“It started after meeting Mick Jagger for his upcoming tour,” says Vaccarello. “He showed me his wardrobe and I was particularly attracted by the details, the colours, the attitude.”

In particular, Vaccarello took inspiration from the seminal 1975 concert tour of the Americas by the Rolling Stones. And, inflecting that aesthetic with a certain je ne sais quoi quality of Gainsbourg, what unravelled on the sandy beach runway in Malibu was the ultimate rock’n’roll wardrobe brimming with a timeless bohemian attitude.

‘Malibu’ you ask? Why, yes. Decamping from its Parisian home, the maison gathered the global menswear cognoscenti in California—swapping the glittering lights of Manhattan that served as a hypnotic backdrop to last year’s spring/summer 2019 men’s show, for the pristine beach of Paradise Cove in Malibu—to witness the latest men’s spring/summer 2020 collection.

With the likes of Keanu Reeves, Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth seated in the front row, guests were positioned facing the Pacific Ocean and the horizon; the runway constructed from black-painted timber planks embedded into the beach, bordered by jagged cliffs on one side and crashing waves on the other.