Can we Take A Moment To Appreciate YSL’s Beautiful 2020 Beach Show (FWC TBFashion)

Ever since Anthony Vaccarello landed at Saint Laurent in 2016—in fact, even before, with his own label—he has always had a preference for staging his shows so that the audience sits on only one side of the runway, giving an uninterrupted view of the unfolding spectacle.

For his Summer 2020 men’s show, his second for the house after last June’s ’70s opium-fest in NYC, it was business as usual, if it’s possible to call staging a show on an ebonized boardwalk runway atop a Malibu beach usual. (Nope, obviously not, not even for the likes of Keanu Reeves, LaKeith Stanfield, and Miley Cyrus, who sat front row.) More on why California in a minute, but what did that uninterrupted view of the clothes tell us? That Vaccarello, who barely tackled menswear prior to arriving at Saint Laurent, save for his brief stint at Versus, is a quick study. This was a strong and assured outing from him, connecting to some of that YSL legend of old, but also with his own unerring sense of what a young guy might actually want to wear today.

The major starting point for the collection, Vaccarello said at a preview, was Marrakech in the ’70s (YSL was a habituée) reimagined as 21st-century Los Angeles, a city that resides on Vaccarello’s own emotional landscape. (He first visited when he was 14, and there have been many return visits.) While that’s some geographical leap, it’s not an unimaginable one; both locations speak to a yearning for a certain bohemian, free-spirited, almost mystical escape. “You come to L.A. for vacation,” Vaccarello said. “You can disconnect from the rest of the world.”