I’m not quite sure what Emily Cooper—in all her “Paris, je t’aime!” berets and earnest marinière stripes—would have made of Anthony Vaccarello’s fall 2024 collection for Saint Laurent, which debuted this evening at Paris Fashion Week. She might have considered the naked dresses—and pencil skirts and body-baring pussy-bow blouses—a little too risqué, and she doubtless would have thought the bulwark-shouldered suiting to be a little too domineering for a young woman in business. To appropriate the boardroom speech of her beloved Savoir, the whole thing would have been “off-brand” or perhaps “unaligned.” (I apologize if Cooper no longer works for that PR agency. I haven’t quite found the time to catch up on Emily In Paris.)
The actor Lily Collins—who is not, but does play Emily Cooper in the Netflix smash hit—smiled while posing on Saint Laurent’s step and repeat tonight. She had been dressed by the brand in a Le Smoking tuxedo jacket, floral-printed flares and a waistcoat. Jennifer Lawrence also wore a waistcoat—without a shirt—to Dior’s fall 2024 show this morning, which means I will probably be writing a trend piece on this most “controversial comeback” in the coming weeks. And, in what might be the starriest turn out of the season thus far, Collins was joined by a phalanx of A-listers: among them Zoë Kravitz, Diane Kruger, Charlotte Rampling, Carla Bruni, Linda Evangelista, Monica Belluci, Iris Law and Kate and Lila Moss. Her co-star Philippine Leroy-Beaulieu wore an ’80s-indebted trench.
In his accompanying show notes, Vaccarello described the collection as “a reminder of what was once at the centre of fashion by rendering it invisible: clothes.” That would explain all the diaphanous dresses—which had been ruched around the body in suggestive tugs and folds— inspired by the nude-illusion dress that Marilyn Monroe wore on her final public outing in 1962. Ie, the same gown that Kim Kardashian wore to the 2022 Met Gala. In an alternate universe, I’d wager that Emily Cooper could have been the publicity genius behind that Believe Or Not! stunt. “Can purity be provocative?” Vaccarello asked. Emily Cooper would have perhaps responded with something like: “Durée is smudge-proof, even when you’re berry hungry!” or “I feel like Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge!”