SAINT LAURENT MEN SPRING-SUMMER 2026: WHERE EIGHTIES LIBERATION MEETS PARISIAN COOL

THE STAGE AND ITS POETIC FREEDOM

Anthony Vaccarello presented Saint Laurent Men’s Spring/Summer 2026 within the elegant rotunda of Paris’s Bourse de Commerce, where an installation by Céleste Boursier-Mougenot filled the space with the sound of ceramic bowls floating in blue water. It was calm, hypnotic, almost like couture therapy.

The setting framed the show as a meditation on freedom, a reminder that fashion doesn’t always have to scream; it can also hum softly.

A COLOR PHOTOGRAPH OF LIBERATION

Gone was the darkness of past runways. Vaccarello turned on the light, and color flooded in: burgundy, ochre, mint, navy, cerulean, and an earthy mix of warm browns.

These tones echoed the vibrant portraits of Larry Stanton and Billy Sullivan, artists who immortalized the queer summer spirit of the 1970s and 1980s. The effect was one of ease and hedonism, like fabric dipped in Fire Island sunlight.

THE SILHOUETTES: STRUCTURE GENTLY SLIPS

The show opened with tailored short shorts: pleated, cuffed, and daringly high, styled with oversized silk shirts in shades of orange and rust.

It was tailoring gone mischievous, like Wall Street interns moonlighting as dancers. Then came the trousers: balloon-waisted, tapering at rolled cuffs, creating movement with every step. Each look seemed to say: the rules of menswear are here only to be bent, not obeyed.

TAILORING TEMPTED BY PRACTICALITY

Saint Laurent’s tailoring is still sharp, but here Vaccarello softened its edges. Jackets came with removable shoulder pads, allowing wearers to decide between structured and relaxed.

Trench coats floated, translucent, their sheerness catching light like tissue paper: proof that even staples can dream of being delicate. It was tailoring, yes, but tailoring that exhaled.

ACCESSORIES THAT WHISPER, NOT SHOUT

Oversized acrylic sunglasses took the spotlight, part retro, part ironic, entirely Saint Laurent. They looked like something your eccentric uncle wore in 1983 and somehow chic again.

Notably absent were the thigh-high leather boots that had become Vaccarello’s guilty pleasure. Rumor has it gladiator sandals were designed but scrapped at the last minute. Sometimes restraint is the boldest accessory.

AN UNDERLYING POIGNANCY

This wasn’t just playful nostalgia. There was weight beneath the color. A photograph of Yves Saint Laurent himself in short shorts on a tennis court haunted the collection, grounding it in house memory. The palette and sensibility drew from artists whose lives were cut short by AIDS in the 1980s, lending the collection both a celebratory and elegiac tone. These were clothes as a shield, clothes as desire, clothes as memory.

A SUMMER SASSY WITH SARCASM

Let’s be honest: no one is mowing the lawn in these shorts. You would need delicate choreography just to keep the pleats in place. Yet that’s the fantasy Vaccarello sells so well: wardrobes too glamorous to be practical, too decadent not to want.

These are outfits for afternoons that exist only in novels and movies, the kind of clothes that make you late on purpose.

CONCLUSION: SUNLIT FREEDOM IN A SUIT

Saint Laurent’s Spring/Summer 2026 menswear was a shift away from costume toward sensation. It offered fabric that breathes, colors that glow like memories, silhouettes that liberate rather than constrain. Anthony Vaccarello distilled the spirit of freedom, desire, and remembrance into a collection that balanced fragility with power.

In a season where so many brands shout louder and louder, Saint Laurent chose to whisper and somehow, the whisper carried further.

All the looks of the collection:

Watch the full fashion show: