The Ties That Bind

For Anthony Vaccarello, now in his third season at the helm of Saint Laurent, accepting the legacy of the venerable French fashion house has ultimately set him free. To wit: this collaboration with the artist Nobuyoshi Araki. By Alexandra Marshall

- Alexandra Marshall

On the top floor of the Grand Palais in Paris, beneath the ribbed glass ceiling that grants the Beaux Arts building its landmark status, the sun shines down on a strangely calm hive of pre–fashion show activity. A crew of about 50 tailors, production assistants, stylists, and models is in the throes of a 48-hour marathon of fittings for Anthony Vaccarello’s third collection as the artistic director of Saint Laurent. This season, Vaccarello and his team will stage their most ambitious runway presentation thus far, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower. Just a few days before, Pierre Bergé, Yves Saint Laurent’s onetime partner and the house’s co-founder, passed away after a long illness; and just a few days hence, two long-planned Yves Saint Laurent museums, in Paris and Marrakech, will finally open to great sentimental fanfare. With so much attention on modern fashion’s most enduring and intimidating legacy, the pressure should be on for Vaccarello, who is 37 and the house’s fifth resident designer since 1999, when Yves Saint Laurent stepped down from ready-to-wear.