Saint Laurent debuts thigh-high patent boots at Bourse de Commerce

Saint Laurent closed a men’s-wear presentation at the Bourse de Commerce just past nine on Tuesday night with skintight patent leather boots that rose well above the knee. Models slinked around the rotunda looking “as if they’d been dipped in unset black paint,” and the boots’ chiseled fronts recalled 1990s square toes.

The review described them as kinky, domineering and possibly distracting. A year earlier Vaccarello sent out thigh-high boots that sat off the leg; this season’s version was likened in the review to “a knight’s armor in scrunched, thigh-squeezing leather,” prompting questions about how one even gets into them.

The article placed the look in the context of Anthony Vaccarello’s established house style: hard-edge, ’80s revivalist tailoring with sport coats that “land at right angles” and protruding shoulders. Vaccarello said backstage, “For the man, it’s always hard to play with reinventing a look.

And I like that. It’s always playing with classic details just twisted a little bit.” He also said he was inspired by James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room.” The review said the boots injected electricity into an otherwise precise, if predictable, collection and noted other details such as scooped sweater necks, bouffant ascots and layered neckties.

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