Anthony Vaccarello crafts a collection where darkness and vulnerability transform into art.
Yearning, unrequited love, and rueful acceptance—all these are characterized by feelings of misery, but when interpreted through the lens of Saint Laurent, they transform into something powerful, poignant, and even alluring.
The French fashion house, on January 27, showcased its Fall/Winter 2026 menswear collection, which tells a story on sexuality and vulnerability in ways only Anthony Vaccarello can. He turned the nearly 40-meter-high Bourse de Commerce into a cinematic scene where models paced in big bold suits, faux fur scarves, oversized muffs, and latex and PVC pieces.
Backstage, he told reporters that these are what he imagined the characters of Giovanni’s Room would be wearing. The 1956 novel by James Baldwin follows a young American man in 1950s Paris, David, who struggles to accept his homosexuality, resulting in a failed, intense affair with an Italian bartender named Giovanni.
Vaccarello read it for the first time one Christmas and admitted to being drawn to its themes of yearning, awakening, and the tension “between something very conventional and something sensual.” He elaborated, “I loved the book because it’s very real, that idea of the man being in a normal life, let’s say, and not assuming his real nature.”
The result is a collection that blends the sharp and soft, masculine and feminine in pieces that are dramatic and sensual yet still sophisticated. It came through in sharp and angular suits made in “very classic men’s fabrics, like you’d find in the 50s when the book was written.”
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Many of them feature Vaccarello’s trademark wide shoulder that looms over feminine, pinched waist. Jackets were reimagined in herringbone patterns, pinstripes, and Prince of Wales checks. Some sport a low lapel break revealing a bit more skin, just like the super-tight knitwear that was cut with a deep décolletage.
They were paired with slender and sinuous pants, often with high waists and tailored with fabrics like wool crepe and grain de poudre. Others came in skinny variations.
Vaccarello pushed the boundaries of everyday wear even further with odd pajama sets and what looked like liquid latex leggings but were, in fact, made from patent leather. Some of them were worn under pinstripe boxer shorts, while others were attached directly to shiny black mules, making them ideal for the men who are always on the go but stay on point.
“You still have the codes of masculinity, but it’s more sensual the way you wear the tights,” the designer said about the striking piece. “It’s the way you mix things together that can give you another perspective.”
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The color palette is starkly different from past seasons—solemn and dark to represent a masculinity that is tough and fragile at the same time. Vaccarello explained, “It’s darker than usual because I do a lot of colors, and maybe this season, with what’s happening in the world, I don’t want to pretend everything is great. So the darkness came to my mind.”
He balanced melancholy with delicate femininity by layering the pieces with muffs of fur worn as mufflers, silk scarves knotted under shirt collars, and patent leather boots.
Watch the Saint Laurent Fall 2026 at Paris Fashion Week below.
