Anthony Vaccarello marks decade at helm of fashion house with powered-up take on Yves Saint Laurent’s classic
The most famous suit in the world, Yves Saint Laurent’s Le Smoking, has returned to the Paris catwalk 60 years after its invention.
Designed by the late couturier to be worn by men in smoking rooms to protect clothing from the smell of cigars, he adapted it for women, slimming the trousers and lapels. It wasn’t a runaway success – only one sold from his 1966 collection – but it became a global symbol of power dressing and gender dismantling, and would appear in every collection until Saint Laurent retired in 2002.
Worn on the opening night of Paris fashion week by 14 models, each with one hand stuffed nonchalantly into a pocket, the 2026 version had been adapted further still by Saint Laurent’s current designer, Anthony Vaccarello, who was marking a decade in the job. It wasn’t the slinky tailoring synonymous with Saint Laurent but more of an 1980s Wall Street look, worn with maximal jewellery and a makeup palette ripped from Robert Palmer’s Addicted to Love video.
Hot on the heels of Harry Styles’s black-and-white boucle pinstripe Chanel suit at the Brits, some even came in barely-there pinstripe, though they were more reminiscent of the dollar-saturated world of Wall Street than Nigel Farage. As if to hammer home the power-dressing theme, the coat section featured enormous jackets in knitted shearling and sky-high heels.
