This is an edition of the newsletter Show Notes, in which Samuel Hine reports from the front row of the fashion world. Sign up here to get it free. A young man stalks through the gloomy ballroom in a long leather duster. Underneath, he wears a dignified gray business suit, double-breasted, with a striped dress shirt and a dark red tie firmly knotted at his throat.
Hands in pockets, the man, on the hunt for a dangerous encounter, disappears into the night. Last week, the contemporary opera nabbed 13 Academy Award nominations, including for best picture, directing, and actress in leading roleโthe most Oscar noms in history for a foreign language film.
At the Bourse de Commerce, every starlet clutching a champagne flute in the front row seemed to have stepped into a dramatic narrative : Steve Lacey in the dark overcoat of a mob boss, Lennon Gallagher the taupe suit of a London private eye.
At YSL, Vaccarello has cornered the market for strong shoulders , but his designs are elegantly shaped, more heartthrob than heavy. But on the bottom was a freaky plot twist: stiff black leather waders, which stretched from floor to hipbone. With chunky square toes and sturdy heels, these were less Johnny Cash chilling by the river and more BDSM dungeon master. Vaccarello, on the other hand, speaks to our time in the same way the most compelling auteurs do.
He is making fashion for our knife-edge moment. Facing an uncertain future, risky and reckless behavior only becomes more seductive. What they had in common was a taste for the nightlife underworlds of their respective cities.
