Inside Saint Laurent's Fall 2024 RTW: Anthony Vaccarello's Sheer Transparency

The media has made YSL’s designs about resilience. What if that is simply not the story? 

Saint Laurent Fall 2024 Ready-to-Wear Collection

Anthony Vaccarello's Saint Laurent Fall 2024 Ready-to-Wear presentation revealed the body and the person in their most stripped-down form— in sheer transparency. While one might expect such a display to convey vulnerability, it suggested something far more defiant.

At the core of the collection was a striking contrast between flexibility and fragility. Nearly the entire lineup was crafted from stocking fabric—material that stretches and adjusts, but also rips apart. In an era oversaturated with reality, Vaccarello doubled down on fantasy, describing his collection as ephemeral, almost elusive in its nature.

There’s a singular magnetism in revealing so little yet exposing so much. Yves Saint Laurent’s legacy is rooted in this principle: the Saint Laurent woman is never static. She embodies desire itself, wielding it like a weapon, orchestrating control over what others might deem vulnerability.

And yet, the discourse persists. The female body—or the concept of it—remains endlessly contested. In fact, that’s pretty much all it ever does. Everyone has an opinion, strying to morph it into something deeper than flesh and bone. We demand it carry ideas, ideology, even morality. What we cannot—and will not—do is simply let it be.

The female body will never just be perceived as an expression of nature. The investment in it is far too grand. Yet, for the sake of this specific conversation, we might benefit from a more romantic approach: To see the body, in Vaccarello’s vision, not as a site for debate but as an act of admiration—a celebration of form, movement, and power in its most immediate, unapologetic expression.