2023-06-16 11:24:40
When Saint Laurent turned the Neue Nationalgalerie into a runway, Berlin felt like a real fashion metropolis for a brief moment.
Luxury fashion meets legendary architecture: on Monday, Saint Laurent presented the men’s collection for next summer in the Neue Nationalgalerie. Saint Laurent
The sun was already beginning to glow red when the first limousines reached the forecourt of the New National Gallery on Monday evening. Slim people in black clothes climb out of the polished bodies. Fabrics and hair gently blow in the wind, there is a smile on many faces. Dust, carried by the warm evening air from the neighboring construction site, softens the scene on the museum’s modernist plateau. It almost looks like the meeting of a free religious community that gathers here at sunset for a ceremony.
And indeed there is something unbelievable about what is happening. The beautiful people were brought together by Anthony Vaccarello, the creative director of the fashion brand Saint Laurent – who will present his new men’s collection for summer 2024 in the iconic Mies van der Rohe building today. The black chic is a reference to the French fashion house founded by the great Yves Saint Laurent over 50 years ago and today one of the most famous brands in the world.
That’s why it’s such a sensation that Berlin of all places is the venue for a Saint Laurent fashion show. Fashion labels of this magnitude usually stage their shows at Paris Fashion Week. Even if Vaccarello likes to step out of line when it comes to the choice of location; International fashion designers only dare to go to the metropolis on the Spree, which always looks a bit awkward, for celebrations.
Photos in front of the YSL logo erected for the show on the plateau of the Neue Nationalgalerie. The unofficial dress code was black.Sabine Rothig
Little information about the show location was leaked until shortly before the start of the event. However, the bush radio among the Berlin K-Pop fans had worked extremely well beforehand. So, mainly underage girls gathered behind the barrier that surrounded the area. They all knew that today they will see their stars here.
Now the teenagers start screaming. heads turn. Only a few adults know the K-Pop starlets in this country. For luxury fashion, however, Jeonghan, Mark Tuan or Tenlee are efficient brand ambassadors. The videos of her arrival in Saint-Laurent looks spread like wildfire across the world via social media. Scream, take photos, wave, walk in. That’s how it works. Little by little, other guests arrive, such as the actress Charlotte Gainsbourg, the model Anja Rubik, the artist Anne Imhof and the art collector Julia Stoschek. The host, the museum director Klaus Biesenbach, positions himself at the entrance to shake hands. Champagne is poured and many cigarettes are smoked. When Juergen Teller arrived, many were amused. The photographer chose a gray Margiela t-shirt for the evening, paired with bright green gym shorts, sports socks and sneakers. You have to be able to afford to ignore the unofficial black dress code. Teller can do it, especially as the insider knows: sports shorts are Teller’s signature look.
Juergen Teller came in a T-shirt and gym shorts.Sabine Rothig
The show starts around 9pm. The air inside the iconic Mies van der Rohe building is filled with a complex, luxurious fragrance. Between lengths of black fabric, one enters the glass hall, which is framed by long rows of two black Barcelona benches. The guests will be seated on it in a few minutes. The curtains installed for the event, which separate the fitting area from the runway, intensify the vertical dimension of the building. Add to that the black steel girders, the setting sun that paints the room a holy orange – a moment that shows how perfectly the building is suited to aesthetic staging like this one.
It is the vertical that Anthony Vaccarello also celebrates in his designs. Like classic fashion sketches, the male models now walk between grey-green marble, steel and fabric in looks for the coming summer: Endlessly long legs on which filigree bodies with broad shoulders sit. Narrow black trousers and patent leather shoes with block heels lengthen the silhouette. Above that, the Saint Laurent tuxedo, trapeze-like, in exaggerated lines. The silk undershirt accommodates the deep neckline below the solar plexus. On the one hand, this impertinently exaggerated chic fulfills the contemporary desire for elegance and at the same time adds an almost unbearable edge with the exaggerated cut edges on the shoulders.
Sunset at the New National Gallery: The light of the setting sun softens the Saint-Laurent black. Saint Laurent
The tops, on the other hand, are not at all unwearable, sometimes transparent, with polka dots, sometimes with a leopard pattern, sometimes with a diagonal button placket. Neckholder tops have knots on their collarbones, bow ties float on their necks, trains caress the Epprechtsteiner granite floor. The collection is reminiscent of the highly acclaimed women’s collection that was shown in Paris a few months ago. Nevertheless, Vaccarello manages to make the men appear masculine. This is also due to the type of man he quotes who is reminiscent of Jim Morrison or the young Mike Jagger.
Saint Laurent sophistication: polka dots and train, pinstripes, solar plexus cut-outs.Saint Laurent
The Saint Laurent designer was inspired by Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s last film “Querelle” from 1982, in which, according to Jean Genet’s novel, the characters are found in ambivalent constellations. Light and shadow: Like these characters, who are fragile and yet have a lot on their plate, the models walk through the increasingly darkening room to the dramatic soundtrack of French musician SebastiAn.
Leopard print is a tradition at Saint Laurent. The precise processing of the fabric can be seen on the symmetrically patterned back part of the coat.Saint Laurent
At nightfall, this fashion show ends and society goes into the typical Berlin celebration mode. In the gutted concrete palace of the power plant, guests are first invited to a dinner. Here, too, the staging has something religious about it. The clerical high ceilings of the industrial building as in a nave, the huge table with countless candles, which stands at the entrance like an orthodox altar. The fog over the ground, which diffusely scatters the yellow light and is reminiscent of steaming incense.
Finally, you take a seat on an infinitely long table on the upper floor. And while wax drips in proper style onto the snow-white tablecloth, a strictly choreographed, three-course dinner is served. Around midnight the bass starts to boom on the ground floor, Honey Dijon, Charlotte de Witte and Boysnoize play the club for other arriving guests well into Tuesday. The divine event ends at around 5 a.m. with a highly gratifying conclusion: Anthony Vaccarello’s Berlin Saint Laurent experiment was a complete success. Next please!
Videos and photos from the Berlin Saint Laurent Show can be found on our Instagram channel @berliner_zeitung_style
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