Saint Laurent Unveils Spring/Summer 2022 Menswear Within A Living Artwork
Image via Saint Laurent
To showcase its SS22 menswear collection, Saint Laurent’s creative director and fashion designer Anthony Vaccarello commissioned an entire living artwork to host its pieces.
Green Lens is the name of the installation which lives on the Isola Della Certosa, Venezia, Italy. Its mirror-covered façade, crafted by artist and filmmaker Doug Aitken, appears to be living, breathing component of the surrounding scenery. Its mirrors reflect the movements of the lush greenery, flowing water, and gorgeous sunsets of the island.
“This installation turns the landscape into a living abstraction,” the Saint Laurent website states. “Green Lens sparks dialogue that links the natural landscape with our future.”
The website also states that all the materials used were either rented, reused, recycled, or donated. Saint Laurent also statest that the greenhouse gas emissions are offset through a reforestation effort in the Isola Della Certosa Garden.
Initially designed for a womenswear show that later was cancelled due to the pandemic, the structure was later declared to be more suitable to have the spotlight now. “In the end it made more sense to have it in Venice than in Paris,” Vaccarello tells Vogue magazine.
He describes the SS22 Menswear collection as a mix of Saint Laurent with Venetian “New Romanticism,” elaborating: “Not putting them into the historical, classical Venetian way, but in a futuristic environment.”
The collection boasts a gothic, Saint Laurent-esque take on both traditional and contemporary silhouettes. There are notes of borrowing and reworking womenswear pieces and old collections by Vaccarello, perhaps a nod to sustainability.
“Green Lens is a living artwork. It is both an artwork, installation and stage. It’s like a lighthouse, that one can journey to and have a very personal experience, while it also transmits light, ideas and questions,” states Aitken.
Green Lens is open to visits from the public from July 16–30.
[via Dazed, image via Saint Laurent]
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