Anthony Vaccarello opened Paris Men’s Fashion Week with a gesture both minimal and monumental: a Saint Laurent collection presented within an immersive fog installation by Japanese artist Fujiko Nakaya. Models emerged and disappeared through luminous mist at the Bourse de Commerce, their silhouettes visible only in fragments before dissolving back into vapor.
The show also generated significant social media attention, with images of models walking through Nakaya’s fog becoming the most-shared visual from the first day of Paris Men’s week. The combination of Vaccarello’s tailoring and Nakaya’s atmospheric art created a total experience that transcended either component alone.
Vacarello’s men’s collections have grown progressively more edited since he took full creative control of the house. The SS27 season represents the most extreme expression of this refinement: fewer pieces, fewer colors, fewer distractions. What remains is a wardrobe stripped to its essentials.
Saint Laurent’s ability to command the opening slot of Paris Men’s week — and to fill it with a presentation that prioritized atmosphere over spectacle — speaks to Vaccarello’s confidence in his editorial vision. In a season of maximal gestures, the fog show proved that subtraction can be its own kind of statement.
The collection itself matched the environment’s elusiveness. Vaccarello delivered one of his most restrained men’s offerings to date — sharp tailoring in black and midnight blue, narrow trousers that elongated the leg, single-breasted jackets cut without excess. The brevity of the show, sixteen minutes, matched the ephemeral nature of the fog.
WWD’s review described the collection as “one of his most straightforward men’s collections yet — but with flashes of gold and flesh.” Those flashes — a bare torso beneath an open jacket, a gold necklace against bare skin — provided the sensual counterweight to the tailoring discipline.
