EXCLUSIVE: Saint Laurent to Stage Fashion Show in Venice in July

WATER WORKS: Saint Laurent intends to stage a physical fashion show in Venice in July, featuring an installation by artist Doug Aitken commissioned by the label’s creative director Anthony Vaccarello, according to sources familiar with the matter.

The event will coincide with the city’s Architecture Biennale, which runs until Nov. 21, but no further details could be learned. The house could not be reached for comment.

Known for his site-specific installations and happenings, Aitken won the International Prize at the Venice Biennale in 1999 for his hypnotic video installation “Electric Earth,” which explored a black man’s journey though the contemporary American landscape.

The event will be Saint Laurent’s first physical show since its fall 2020 women’s ready-to-wear display in Paris in February last year. The timing would suggest that it will be a men’s collection. In recent years, Saint Laurent has skipped Paris Men’s Fashion Week, instead staging annual itinerant shows in New York City and Malibu.

The brand, owned by luxury conglomerate Kering, was the first to announce last year that it would drop out of Paris Fashion Week and set its own pace for showing collections for the duration of the year, as brands pivoted to adapt to the coronavirus crisis. 

Vaccarello regularly collaborates with artists and filmmakers as part of Self, an art project celebrating the various facets of Saint Laurent’s identity. The house has a long history of dialogue with the arts. Some of founder Yves Saint Laurent’s haute couture creations referenced works by the likes of Piet Mondrian, Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso.

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