Saint Laurent channels the spirit of Mies van Der Rohe for its modernist SS24 set

Saint Laurent creative director Anthony Vaccarello presented his women’s SS24 collection at the foot of the Eiffel Tower in Paris last night, with models walking a marble runway designed to evoke Mies van der Rohe’s Neue Nationalgalerie.

The epic runway presentation is usually staged at Place de Varsovie, backdropped by Gustave Eiffel’s iconic monument; however, as part of his ‘new direction’ for the brand, Vaccarello moved the presentation to the actual site of the tower.

Vaccarello’s show notes hat-tipped pioneering aviators and style icons Amelia Earhart and Adrienne Bolland as inspiration for the pared-back collection, while the set was all about restrained modernism.

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Bureau Betak produced the runway show, which featured an open-air runway recreating the interior of Mies van der Rohe‘s Berlin landmark, where Vaccerello presented his men’s show in June.

The Neue Nationalgalerie was van der Rohe’s last major public monument, inaugurated shortly before his death in 1968, and the culmination of his lifelong architectural preoccupation with fluid open spaces and graceful but austere, functional design.

This ‘pared back’ and ‘functional’ spirit resonates with Vaccarello, who told Vogue: ‘Today, I see so many complicated things: so many embroideries, so many decorative things. I want to take out these things that aren’t necessary and build a canvas, and start something new.’