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Unabated in its pursuit of articulating chic Parisienne style, Saint Laurent has sustained the spirit of adventure evoked on the grand marble stage for their Spring/Summer 2024 collection with its latest injection. Unveiled today, the Summer 2024 campaign immortalises pregnant model and muse, Hailey Bieber, in the mechanical redux and utilitarian uniform presented under the Eiffel Tower during Paris Fashion Week back in September.
It’s a fitting release given the codes and essence of travel that underscores the Maison—especially since this design vocabulary was reinvigorated by creative director Anthony Vaccarello with a parade of safari jackets, or as it is known inside the luxuriate’s lexicon ‘Saharienne, canvas boilersuits, cargo pants and functional shirting.
The safari jacket, rendered into a jumpsuit worn by Bieber as she icily poses in front of an electrical panel of breaker boxes, was brought to the French capital in 1967 by the eponymous Yves Saint Laurent following an excursion to North Africa. An instant sensation and a brief on-screen appearance on Catherine Deneuve in the surrealist erotic drama Belle De Jour, the silhouette marked a new chapter in the maison’s storied history as a house synonymous with women’s sartorial needs and desires. But if it wasn’t for this pilgrimage, who is to say where the brand would be now?
Vaccaro has continued this nomadic approach to design, journeying to the Côte d’Azur to dress the silver screen starlets performing in titles premiering at the Cannes Film Festival under the Saint Laurent Productions banner. Now, nestled amongst the shade of Los Angeles’ palm trees and against a brutalist backdrop of brick walls, Vaccellaro’s desire for a clean slate after a period of vampy sophistication is fully realised. Isn’t it always the way that you must leave what you know to discover where you belong?
The campaign also expressed a shift in the luxirate’s attitudes towards femininity. Where body-conscious and cut outs once reigned supreme, Summer 2024 firmly plants Saint Laurent’s gesture of simplicity. A return to foundations, if you will.
The stance is pragmatic, but no less desirable. Couture-informed daytime looks and looser silhouettes draw inspiration from Amelia Earhart, Adrienne Bolland and other pioneering women who infiltrated domains once considered exclusively male, such as aviation and car racing.
As Bieber steps into her new role as mother and makeup mogul, this quiet intensity is revealed through her cold and unperturbed exterior. Sheltered behind Saint Laurent’s new limited-edition Ultra Black Wayfarer (crafted in collaboration with Ray-Ban) and armoured by inorganic, sculptural jewels, Bieber is armed for action. Romancing the stone indeed. Given Bieber has also garnered notoriety through her antithesis approach to couple dressing, who better to epitomise this Parisian accent on ‘borrowed from the boys’ style?
This hard and assertive façade is at home in front of Gray Sorrenti’s lens. Tapping the daughter of famed fashion photographer Mario Sorennti cements Saint Laurent’s commitment to administering a feminine inflection into otherwise traditionally masculine domains. This is explicit in the solo images of the new le 5 à 7 Supple bag, a larger, top-handle variant of the iconic style. Crafted in a supple, pebble-like leather, the purse is a fresh page to project your fashion fantasies onto. Where will this piece take you? We’ll follow Saint Laurent, and in this case, Bieber, wherever they go.
Speaking on the campaign, the Rhode Beauty founder acknowledged the sentimental milestone (and unexpected maternity style nature) of the shoot, revealing that the images were captured four months into her pregnancy. “Shot this 4 months preggy with little bean in my belly,” Bieber shared with her 52 million Instagram followers. From little things, big things grow, much like Saint Laurent itself.
