Anthony Vaccarello

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1:10Hi, come in.

1:18Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, Anthony Vaccarello. Thank you. Can you tell me what you're wearing today and why you chose these particular clothes? I have to say more and more I'm dressing like, to don't think about it. I'm wearing like a black T-shirt and black lounge pants. Yeah, to be focused on what I have to do during the day. And you always wear black? Yes. Yes. I try some nude colors or some like more softer colors sometimes, but I could not get out of the house like that. So I'm in black when I'm outside of the house. I think one of the things that is the purpose of fashion is to be able to dress in a way that makes you not think about yourself, even if it's very attention-seeking.

2:19And because when you get it right, you can think properly, and it really is an asset to your intelligence, because you don't have to worry about your outfit. But it isn't always to do with being not dressed up. So I like the way different people do that. Like you, you wear a kind of uniform, and some people do the opposite, and they have the same outcome. And I think that's the kind of service of great design. Yeah, it's been trying to be not at the center of the attention. I see myself more as to serve someone in a way. So being in black, for me, it's more like being a soldier in a way. Because you're the creative director of Yves Saint Laurent.

3:20You're one of the most respected designers in the world. And you're also producing films as part of your role as the creative director. What was the first film that you saw that really affected you? I think I still don't know if it was Crash by David Cronenberg or I mean in French it's called Le Labyrinthe des Passions from Pedro Almodovar oh yeah it's one of those and I have the feeling that my work it's really in the middle of those two films between Crash and any film of Anne Madovary in the 90s. Yeah. Yeah. I love those directors, in particular David Cronenberg, because he was on Fashion Neurosis and I met him and just found him.

4:21That is amazing. He's so wonderful and so funny. Yeah, it's amazing. Being able to work with them years later when I was at Saint Laurent was for me like, when I think about it, one of my biggest achievements. For me, it's even more important than doing clothes or doing shows, was being able to work with David Cronenberg, Pedro Almodovar, Jim Jarmusch. Yeah. Also, I was very close to work with Jean-Luc Godard. I did just a little bit before the project was started. And it's crazy to form like a boy from Belgium being able to work with those amazing artists. So, yeah. Because your parents often took you to museums as a child.

5:23And you said one of your early memories is being shocked by a Francis Bacon painting. And I remember going to the Tate with my stepfather when I was 11, him putting his hand over my eyes. And I've loved Francis Bacon ever since then. And I wondered, is being shocked by art something that's key to your liking it? I don't think that there was... I mean, my parents, like, I came from, like, a very normal middle class family. I mean, my parents were immigrants from Sicily, so I think the museum was not their priority when I was a kid. So I have the feeling they pushed me to be curious by myself, but I have no memories of going to the museum with them.

6:21So Francis Bacon and all those artists, I started to discover them through television, through books, through school. But it's more something that I want to learn more about than being fit with art done by... Yeah. Yeah. it's so thoughtful of them to take you to a museum anyway you know just to kind of plant that seed even if i mean clearly that was something very much alive in you anyway because you're such an artistic person and that's that's you know even if there's no obvious connection it seems yeah in a way everything is linked everything makes sense but you discover that like years later the result the effect of of that yeah i think that's true because you said i guess there are so many belgian designers because you get so bored and there's yeah there's a suburb of London called Bromley, which is quite boring and dull, but it's produced these amazing artists, including David Bowie and the writer Hanif Qureshi and Susie Cave and all sorts of intensely creative people.

7:54And when I think about Lee Bowery, who came from some obscure town in Australia but I wondered do you need a certain order in your life to be able to create counterculture I think it's important to get bored when you are a child and I think it's super important to to not having everything straight away that's why I'm very admire a lot the new generation because I mean, admire. They have so many things accessible, like, straight away that I... I mean, I was happy that I was in Belgium in the 90s and having to find by myself what I want to see or what I want to be fit with. But, yeah, it's important to find your way to culture or to anything.

9:03Just kind of knowing the atmosphere of where you can source an idea. And sometimes I'm always kind of puzzled how people can work in chaos, though I often have. But it's the stillness in the storm, really, of that sort of energizing force when an idea takes hold. But you need chaos to be creative? Well, there's a kind of thing that I think in my youth, the idea that you need chaos and anarchy and sort of destruction to sort of have that friction to have an idea. And actually, a lot of my childhood was incredibly boring when it was stable. And I find that having experienced that situation where there is no distraction.

10:08It's a luck. Yeah. Yeah, totally. And it gives you a kind of language, a place that's familiar. You can know this terrible place you want to get out of. Yeah. You grew up in London? I grew up in partly in London, mostly in Sussex in the country, which was where I was really bored. It could not be as boring as Brussels. Yeah, it was pretty dull. You were fighting for the bus. Which area was the most boring? So always when you grow up in a boring place, the exciting place to be is at a bus stop, I find. Yeah, escape. There's all this kind of group activity and cigarettes and things. Totally. And when did you feel clothes could be a tool in your life?

11:09um i always were attracted to clothes and it was more like image than real clothes actually i was a way um i don't know maybe it was when i saw the first one i mean the first the the early career of jean paul gautier mainly through Madonna when he was dressing Madonna in the 90s. So that's my first image of fashion that I had was like Jean-Paul Gaultier, Zina Leia and Gianni Versace. But I think it's because in my generation that's those designers who get the most press or they were the more popular on TV that's how fashion entered into my life so I think they had a huge impact of my of my career but it was more more about the image they were giving more than the clothes and how did your mother dress?

12:23my mother i mean my memories half of my mother was like very classic in a way i remember her heel i mean she had like a closet with all the heel and i remember i still i love to open that closet and to admire like her shoes wow that's so nice i have memories of like a golden shoes with like a spiral in front which now I think was really terrible but when you were kids I don't know I had like a huge fantasy of those shoes but she was very very classic I remember I always like push her to to be more daring with her clothes really? yeah and thank God she didn't listen to me blue shirt with what a skirt what i i'm trying to picture her in your home in her like her silhouette my mother i remember she had like a pencil skirt and i always ask her to i want her to have to buy like a skirt with like a slit on the legs and she was like no never I was like, no, it's so cool to dress like that.

13:46And she was like, no, I'm, she was a secretary. So I imagine what would be strange to go to the office with like a high slit skirt. That's wonderful. I think when my son was little, he was so attentive to what I wore. And he gave me such great compliments. It was really thrilling in a way. That's the best, yeah. Yeah. I was always like very judging.

14:24Because you talked about learning a lot about, you talked about watching Madonna and for her style and everything. What was it about her in particular? I think for my generation, Madonna was like, she opened a lot of doors for us. Um, when you think about it in the 90s, early 90s, celebrities were very classic. And she was the first one to really be dressed by like the designer, like, you know, like very, she dared to wear like a body. she dared to wear like dress with the boob out and nobody was doing that back then and knowing her now you can feel that everything was like very thought even back then was not for free everything what she was doing was like there like a meaning like a purpose and And I found it very inspiring.

15:30Yeah. Because it, I'm always, I mean, everyone's fascinated by her because she's so unapologetic. There's no kind of modesty. And it's really, I mean, it's just sort of. yeah she doesn't care about what people think about like even aging and she's still doing whatever she want to do it's like it's amazing she she's criticized a lot but at the end she's still there and she's still doing whatever she wants and that's an example for for everyone yeah yeah it's great i find you know the older i get the the more I really admire and appreciate when somebody doesn't stop being themselves just because they're a bit older.

16:29No matter what they do, it's really, it's exhilarating and it's fun as well. Yeah. It must be not easy for her to get all those, you know, criticism, but I think she doesn't care. No, it's good. Because you said that you turned to a friend about how to intensify something in a collection that was evading you. And they said, have fun with it. And you brought latex into the repertoire at Saint Laurent. I wonder, do you have a favorite fetish? In general? Besides of latex? Yeah. The text was kind of a fetish for me. It's true that, yeah, I'm starting to have fun at Saint Laurent when I understand that you can twist things that seems classic.

17:38It took me a while to understand the code of Saint Laurent and that Saint Laurent was mostly playing with code, with a good taste and bad taste. And that latex collection was very like a deliverance to me to be able to explore things that I was not able to do it before. So that's my fetish collection. my most fetish collection yeah maybe i mean there was like other fetish after that there was like a stocking collection also yeah i love that collection so much thank you that was fun because it was at a moment where it was a crisis everywhere and everyone was trying to do more and more commercial pieces, easy pieces, trench coats, white shirts, I mean, things that you don't need in your life.

18:41And I really want to make people think about and dream about something unrealistic. And I decided to make a collection fully done by stockings that was even not syllable or so fragile that if you were like once at white it was like over and um i was very able to be able to do that that they let me do that no it was fantastic i it was so it was so private and uh seductive and uh and then when you were talking about looking at your mother's shoes just now and you kind of i saw this kind of glimmer of what must drive you in some ways. It's always very personal. I don't think about it when I'm doing that, but when I look in back of my work, it's I have the feeling that there's always something very personal in every collection.

19:54Yeah. Your favorite fall flavors are back at Starbucks. The one and only pumpkin spice latte and the deliciously smooth iced pecan crunch latte have arrived and are ready to sip all season long. Or find a new favorite, like the new iced banana bread latte that tastes just like fall in a cup. You can find your favorite taste of fall only at Starbucks. So like any good millennial, I have a love-hate relationship with Gen Z. It's the phenomenon rattling millennials. They just look at you. They want something bigger themselves. Lifestyle is a priority. Motivation is being inspired. But regardless of how you feel about Gen Z, it's undeniable that they're changing national politics.

20:41Generation Z is increasingly showing less loyalty to traditional political parties, many now more likely to identify as independent. So what is going on with the kids? I think the biggest misconception about Gen Z's politics right now is that all of a sudden they're all socialists. That is just not the case. They are embracing candidates who are offering new, bold ideas in the absence of those ideas from establishment Democrats. This week on America Actually, Gen Z researcher Rachel Jambaza joins us to separate Gen Z fact versus fiction. It's not rocket science. And this is, you know, I keep saying like young voters aren't that complicated after all.

21:17It's pretty simple. Catch us every Saturday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever wondered who invented rock and roll or why Fleetwood Mac fell apart or what it was like at Motown in the early years? Well, do I have a podcast for you? My name is Will Anderson. I'm a songwriter, a musician, and a huge music history buff. And I'm so excited to announce my new podcast, The Monday Music Club. I teamed up to make this podcast with the Vox Media Podcast Network because ever since I was a kid, I loved hearing and reading stories about classic artists, recording sessions, and music history.

21:51And I wanted to have a place to be able to take what I've learned and share some of those favorites with you. Every Monday, I'll be releasing a new episode and deep diving into a new story with experts and special guests. And it's going to be a blast. So if you're a music history geek like me or even just a casual music fan, jump in. Because I promise the Monday Music Club is going to be the podcast for you. Because when I was living in Rome in the 80s and Vivian Westwood came to stay because she was working in Italy. And I was obsessed with, I had a book of Yves Saint Laurent drawings and I told her how obsessed I was with his work and she was a bit skeptical.

22:34But then she looked at this book and saw all the things that he'd done before anyone else, like the cone bra. It was totally punk. It was, yeah. And then she really liked it. And I was so excited to introduce her to something that she hadn't known so well. And his drawings were so amazing. I wondered, do you draw? I don't draw. With my team, it's mostly, there's a lot of talk, a lot of finding concepts, a lot of collage, a lot of references, and more and more, I'm starting with a fabric. The fabric can give me the desire to make silhouette, to make clothes, but it must start from a drawing. I can sketch something quickly, but it's not like in the 90s.

23:41Even back then, I always have doubt on those designers doing sketches. I had a feeling they sketch after the collection, which is not fair. Not easier. There's a lot of conversation and work with the atelier also. I think the rapport with the atelier is very important. Once you receive a first prototype to be able to modify it to make it to the next step, that's how I work. Because with the stocking, did you just start actually with something in your hands to... the stocking when I did the stocking collection I started to think about how to make sheer without the sheer salon without doing those classic muslin long silhouette and I thought that every girl that was around me were like in leggings in those kind of yoga clothes and I was thinking, okay, what's, you know, also I was inspired by the girlfriend of Kanye West.

24:59Oh, yes. And I thought it was nice to have her and Saint Laurent and try to, which is very modern, to mix her looks and Yves Saint Laurent looks. And that's how it's just, it's like a collage in my head. Yeah. It was like the meeting of those two totally opposite universes in one silhouette. So I want to redo the classic salon draping clothes with her style. That's how it came. That's wonderful. I love that. I like the kind of, you know, the ignoring of the code of correctness in a way that brings about something. But Saint Laurent was always about that, I think. We always think it's very classic.

25:56And of course, at the end of the 90s, he was very doing all the time his classic, perfect lady silhouette. But if you have a look deep into his work, you can see the failure and how the inspiration he had beyond that. I don't know. It was never as classic as his looks like. Yeah. Yeah. There was something behind all the time. Yeah, I know that's what's so wonderful about his work and what you do in your work. And there's this idea always about French women that they know everything about sex, especially the housewives, like the character played by Catherine Deneuve in Bunuel's Belle de Jour. and you described a key theme at Saint Laurent as sex and distance, which he captures so well in that movie.

26:58And what are the clues about this in how a woman dresses? It's a really kind of provocative idea, sex and distance. When I do clothes, I never think about sexiness or sex, because for me, I do things for a woman that really,

27:25she's dressing for herself. She's dressing for her own sexuality. She doesn't dress to please someone or to have sex with someone else. She can have sex with herself. So she doesn't need the approbation of someone. to whatever she wants to do. And maybe there's a difference with the Buñuel, the film where she wants to go into prostitution. I think today it's something different.

28:08It's more about being free. I think even in the film of Buñuel, it's about freedom. it's not about prostitution at the end no I agree I think she wants to feel free and feel the danger yeah of life her life was very boring and she wanna yeah which is great I think yeah the whole thing of fantasy the way you were talking about earlier about how young people have all this immediate thing at their disposition and where does fantasy come from this this kind of taboo thing of something being allowed or not or being transgressed and what that look you know how it can look in fashion i've watched that film so many times and And Bunuel is my favorite film director, and Saint Laurent was my favorite.

29:17He just influenced this idea of good and bad being encapsulated in how someone could look. And that boys are good, good and bad. Yeah. You don't have to choose between. And then what you were saying, this thing about a woman being free, but how is it that French women seem to know how to do that? Whereas here we don't, we're always like self-doubting, like crazy, but... You think it's a French thing? The French women have this... Freedom. this sort of confidence about how they dress. And it's a kind of myth in England about a French woman knows everything about it. I don't know if it's like a French thing because I'm Belgian.

30:13Yeah. So maybe it's like an idea of a French woman. Maybe they're not like that anymore. They were never like that. But we like to think that a French woman are more free. or maybe they are actually, but I'm Belgian, so for me it's more about like a phantasm of what they should be or what they are. But yeah, I don't know if they are more free than another woman in the world. Maybe it's a fantasy of English people about French women seeming to have this... I have to say that you had like Jane Birking, which was English, and she was one of epitome of the French woman also, like very free and very daring, but she was English at the end.

31:16Yeah. So you have it also. Yeah, it's true. Because you have an intensity in your relationships with certain iconic women, and especially Charlotte Gansborg and Kate Moss as well. And they both have this allure and an abasiveness as well. And as though you've just captured them for a moment to show how beautiful and intriguing they are. What draws you to these particular kind of complex women? Those are women that almost doesn't need me. And that's what excites me. it's like they're women that have like a sense of style they know exactly what how they look to be dressed to look good so I'm always fascinated by those strong women who have already like a sense of style and I'm very lazy I don't have to do nothing for them just be around and I mean it's more than that but yes and also yeah I love those women like also Beatrice Dahl or yeah there's so many strong women I love to be surrounded by and for me it was very important to be with them when I start Saint Laurent to be able to be like a team a group of women a gang in a way that was very Saint Laurent too Saint Laurent was about having a family group of friends that of course everyone wants to get into that group but it was not easy to go to the group and I still believe that the closest you are the less the smaller you are the group the more attractiveness so it's very inspiring to be with Charlotte and Kate and Beatrice.

33:23They really seem to represent that in such an original way. Yeah, and they're all very different. Charlotte is very like boyish in a way, but she's amazing when she's wearing like a short mini dress. Yeah. And Kate is like great in whatever she wears. there's only one Kate yeah and only one Charlotte too I mean she's so completely fascinating and totally so many layers and so talented and beautiful and you founded Saint Laurent Productions and you're the first luxury house to incorporate a production company and you said these directors shaped me when I was a kid They made my vision what it is today.

34:19And this is real support for independent film, and it's a way to extend the brand into something more popular and visible. And you've worked with Gaspar Noé and David Cronenberg, Jim Jarmusch, Abel Ferrara, among some of the great directors. And how do you choose who to work with? It's really a dream, really, because all those names that you said were the ones who built me when I was young. And I still don't believe it. It's like a dream. It starts with Gaspar. We were presented by a friend. And the relationship grew with him. And we did that Luxeterana film with Charlotte Gainsbourg and Beatrice Dahl.

35:12and you know when I was a kid I mean that film was selected to the Festival of Cannes and I never thought about that and when I was a kid in the 90s I was obsessed with La Séance du Minuit at Cannes the film that were presented at midnight it was always like the most dangerous the more like subversive film and we were presenting that at midnight and And I was like a kid with Gaspard, Charlotte, Beatrice, smoking in the red carpet with that music of Gaspard. I mean, it was like a moment. Honestly, when I think about my career at Saint Laurent, that red carpet with those three persons were like my highest.

36:06Yeah. The best things I did. And from that, I met Abel Ferrer, which I was obsessed to, Pedro Almodovar, Jim Jarmusch. I mean, it all came from that almost mistake. Not mistake, but like...

36:30We did things without a plan. And we did things with what I really want to do. And I was really lucky that the group trust me in that. So from love and trust, everything came together. Yeah. So I'm very grateful to that, that freedom I had to build that company, that production company. And the fil rouge between all of them, it was really my adolescence. I don't know if you could say it in English. Your adolescence, yeah. It's very selfish. What? It's very selfish at the end. Absolutely. I mean, it's so wonderful because in so many ways it epitomizes what the ultimate glamour of fashion that there's something about Cannes that seems like people have just flung on these clothes without even thinking.

37:42And they have this kind of revolutionary kind of elegance and radical allure and sexiness. And obviously everything is planned and it's not like that, but to be able to be involved in that and to support the work of independent film that's so... To be in camp, not just to dress an actress. It's so... There's so much more meaning than just dressing a celebrity that you barely know. Being there with a filmmaker, it's like... and be part of the film, of the construction of the film, not just dressing the character in the film. It's amazing. It's the most brilliant idea, I mean. And it's very salon.