Vaccarello placed an oversized replica of a bust in the centre of this season’s Saint Laurent runway – a replica of an artefact that once stood in Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé’s private home. Sculptural and austere, it served as a reminder of the body his clothes were always designed for. “Anthony Vacarello focuses on the house at its most foundational,” the show notes read. “The principles of structure and construction, Vaccarello denuding them of nostalgia; architecture for the body shaped by purity and precision.” Over his tenure, Vaccarello has refined his vision with incremental editing, stripping away excess and sharpening the silhouette, subtly recalibrating how Saint Laurent is worn – and therefore read.

The setting amplified the mood. A modernist pavilion of wood-panelled walls and floor-to-ceiling glass windows that framed the Eiffel Tower outside, and created cinematic, vignette panels for those watching outside. It was like something out of an Antonioni movie, and the kind of space Monsieur Saint Laurent would have loved.

This year is a major one for the fashion house, marking the 60th anniversary of Le Smoking, the house’s revolutionary tuxedo for women. Introduced in 1966, it remains one of fashion’s most disruptive and defining silhouettes. It was game-changing – and still is. Vaccarello honoured it in the most fitting way, sending out model after model in their own individual Le Smoking looks. A line-up of noir tailoring – each subtly altered in cut and personality to showcase the garment’s enduring versatility, precision silhouettes slicing through the warm modernist glow. Vaccarello knows drama.

Then came lace. Exquisite, delicate pieces rendered in sheer lace that appeared to form across the body in real-time. Silicone-coated, the tactile material shimmered with a fine lacquer that appeared otherworldly. The material’s fragility was counterbalanced by luxurious, voluminous fourrures that cocooned the body, either wrapping the torso or elongating the frame, cinched by drop-waist belts.

Then the space turned red – drenched in an Argento hue – as models took their finale. A scene that felt both intimate and operatic, framed in the heart of Paris.