Now Film: Anthony Vaccarello's Cinematic Vision For Saint Laurent

"To be honest, when I was a student, Yves Saint Laurent was never someone I looked at," says Vaccarello, who marks a decade at the helm of Saint Laurent next year. "He was already a bit old for me, more linked at the end to the perfume, to that woman—very elegant, very sophisticated—that he always did. But the same clients were very loyal to him, and he never gave up on those amazing women, a bit hors du temps . I really love that, and I'm more attracted now to the '90s moment when he was into that perfect woman. I like the idea of taking that DNA and putting it on a woman today—taking a flower and putting it in a jersey yoga look, for example, for someone you might come across at Erewhon."

We are not at Erewhon this morning, but we aren't far in terms of distance or demography. The late-spring marine layer casts a steely light through the palms in the garden of the Chateau Marmont in West Hollywood, where athleisurely couples nurse oat milk lattes. While this part of town, with its Easter egg Lamborghinis and exuberant party people, is a bit much for Vaccarello, he is partial to the Chateau's decidedly Californian breakfast of fried eggs and sliced avocado.

While building his family, in the last few years Vaccarello has also expanded the cultural reach of the fashion house he runs. In 2023 he launched Saint Laurent Productions to support the work of independent filmmakers, beginning with short films by Pedro Almodóvar and, posthumously, Jean-Luc Godard. Three Saint Laurent Productions feature films appeared at the Cannes Film Festival in 2024: Jacques Audiard's Emilia Perez, David Cronenberg's The Shrouds, and Paolo Sorrentino's Parthenope. In late summer, Jim Jarmusch's Father Mother Sister Brother premiered at Venice, and Claire Denis's The Fence had its debut at the Toronto International Film Festival.

Vaccarello designed the wardrobes, and in this one respect, Saint Laurent Productions is an extension of Yves Saint Laurent's work as a costume designer for theater and film—most famously for Catherine Deneuve in Luis Buñuel's 1967 Belle de Jour. But the principal aim is to connect the artists he admires to the house he leads, and in doing so make Saint Laurent bigger than fashion.