Luxury fashion house Saint Laurent
juxtaposed staid tweed jackets with fetish-style catsuits when
it showed its winter collection at Paris Fashion Week on
Tuesday.
At times though, the dramatic setting for the catwalk show
threatened to upstage the clothes: the models paraded through a
cavernous, pitch-black space, each one bathed in a circle of
light from floodlights.
Celebrities including actress Zoe Kravitz and Hailey
Baldwin, the model married to performer Justin Bieber, watched
the show in Paris's Trocadero district in the shadow of the
Eiffel Tower.
Models paraded through a cavernous pitch-black space. Picture: Reuters
The women's ready-to-wear collection, overseen by Saint
Laurent creative director Anthony Vaccarello, stuck to its theme
of boldly mixing contrasting styles.
Saint Laurent Paris Fashion Week. Picture: Reuters
From the waist up, models were dressed demurely in pussy bow
blouses and conventionally-tailored tweed jackets. Peaking out
from beneath were glistening skin-tight trousers made of what
appeared to be vinyl or PVC.
Some of the outfits leaned towards the daring; in one case,
a PVC corset barely concealed by a full-length coat that was
worn unbuttoned.
Models wear creations for the Saint Laurent fashion collection during Women's fashion week Fall/Winter 2020/21 presented in Paris. Picture: Vianney Le Caer/Invision/AP
Other outfits took a safer route, but still with a nod to
fetishism. One model walked down the catwalk in a loose-fitting
jacket worn with culottes that were short enough to reveal her
thigh-length PVC boots.
Saint Laurent collection show at Paris Fashion Week. Picture: Reuters
The fashion house was founded by Yves Saint Laurent, widely
credited with revolutionising women's fashion. Saint Laurent
died in 2008; he was succeeded as creative director first by
Hedi Slimane, and then, from 2016, by Vaccarello.
The brand is owned by the Kering SA luxury goods
conglomerate, which also owns the Gucci and Balenciaga labels.