Saint Laurent is known for its modern take on classic ready-to-wear pieces. The fashion house’s most recent collection is inspired by none other than avante-garde performer, Peaches.
Saint Laurent’s latest collection merges classic sillhouettes with pieces that are decidedly contemporary. And what better inspiration for a bold, brash and wholly individual collection than musician and artist Peaches.
For AW21, Belgian creative director Anthony Vaccarello intended to blur the line between the luxurious and the tacky, merging 60s sillhouettes with garish colour palettes straight from the 80s. Peaches is known for her bold approach to the topics of sex, feminism and queer identities. The electroclash musician plays with traditional forms of gender expression and graces stages worldwide with a leather-adorned and raucous prescence. Peaches’ style is decidedly loud, camp and trashy.
This certainly makes for interesting inspiration for a luxury fashion house. Saint Laurent’s accompanying fashion film takes its models to distant and far away places, shifting from cliffs to icebergs to rolling hills. Vaccarello said,
“The place, it’s in my imagination! It’s the idea of a girl in a landscape where she doesn’t belong. I knew I wanted a wintry location, one which showed how strong nature is; how we are really nothing next to it, how ephemeral we are. It’s not a place where anyone is going skiing, but Saint Laurent should do something that’s like a dream.”
Source: i-D
Notable pieces from the collection include embellished outerwear, fluff-trimmed miniskirts and tweed suit jackets with shiny leotards.
Corporate Electroclash
On the topic of the pandemic’s impact on the fashion world, Vaccarello said,
“Life can’t just be when it’s bad we are all in black and pyjamas and when it’s good we are in slutty dresses. After the last couple of years, we can’t just go back, otherwise we will lose what we all lived through. Fashion should be something you don’t take too seriously, especially now.”
Source: i-D
While Peaches’ stylistic influence on the collection is undeniable, Saint Laurent’s AW21 is very much a sanitised and cleaned-up version. At times it feels like an electroclash take on corporate wear. However, it is always preferable for designers to take elements of a style and make it their own. And Saint Laurent has produced some truly absorbing pieces this season.
Have a look at some of the stand-outs from the collection below:
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