Anthony Vaccarello’s Spring/Summer 2026 Saint Laurent collection was heaped with excessive baroque jewels that threw back directly to Saint Laurent originals of the early 1990s, one of the designer’s favoured periods
Yves Saint Laurent himself once said “I like dresses to be sober and accessories to be wild” – and, arguably, he rarely got as wild as he did when inventing jewellery, vintage pieces of which retain the sharp stylistic relevance that, say, his inverted wastepaper-bin millinery hasn’t quite. Saint Laurent the man collaborated during the 1960s with artists including Claude Lalanne on remarkable costume bijoux, while his long-standing right-hand woman Loulou de la Falaise took over the devising of his jewels from the 1970s onwards which, whether elaborate or simple, were always conceived as part of a total look. Rounding out a decade as creative director of that house, Anthony Vaccarello now knows its history like the back of his main – he also realises when to reinvent it, and when to build on foundations already there. His Spring/Summer 2026 collection – coinciding, coincidentally, with the 50th anniversary of Saint Laurent’s legendarily opulent Ballets Russes collection – was heaped with excessive baroque jewels that threw back directly to Saint Laurent originals of the early 1990s, one of Vaccarello’s favoured periods. For this redux, however, their sizes were exaggerated beyond all reality, the resultant fist-sized earrings and parures worn with tough biker leathers or billowing Proustian evening gowns alike. Those jewels included breastplate-scale cross necklaces dangling resin teardrop gems that resembled Renaissance treasures – albeit suspended from thick industrial chains to give them a twenty-first century kick.
The crystal cross necklace in resin and metal from Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello will soon be available online. Join the waitlist.
