Anthony Vaccarello

Fashion Neurosis with Bella Freud

In this episode of Fashion Neurosis, Anthony Vaccarello, Creative Director of Saint Laurent, shares intimate insights into his life, creative process, and artistic

Key takeaways

• Black clothing serves as a functional uniform for Vaccarello, allowing him to focus on creation rather than self-presentation.
• Creative inspiration often emerges from moments of boredom and isolation, which foster deep introspection.

Main topics

• The role of fashion in minimizing self-consciousness
• Influence of film on contemporary design

Notable quotes

"I try to be not at the center of attention. To, 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."

Conclusion

Anthony Vaccarello reveals how personal history, artistic influences, and evolving creative

Transcript preview

Speaker 8 (0:01) I'm Ina Garten. On my new podcast, Happy Hour with Ina, I'm inviting really interesting guests to join me for a drink and a fun conversation at my kitchen table in New York City. I'll be getting personal with chefs, actors, comedians, musicians, and writers I admire. So grab a snack, pull up a chair, and join us. Subscribe to Happy Hour with Ina on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes will be available every Wednesday starting September 16th. Speaker 2 (1:15) Welcome to Fashion Neurosis, Antony Vaccarello. Speaker 1 (1:19) Thank you. Speaker 2 (1:20) Can you tell me what you're wearing today and why you chose these particular clothes? Speaker 1 (1:25) 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 large pants. Speaker 4 (1:35) Yeah, to be focused on what I have to do during the day. Speaker 2 (1:39) And you always wear black? Speaker 1 (1:42) Yes. Yes. Speaker 1 (1:47) I try some nude colors or some more softer colors sometimes, but I could not get out of Speaker 4 (1:54) the house like that. So I'm in black when I'm outside of the house. Speaker 2 (2:00) 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. And 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 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 Speaker 2 (2:46) I think that's a kind of service of great design. Speaker 1 (2:51) Yeah, it's being, trying to be not at the center of the attention. To, 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. Speaker 2 (3:13) Because you're the creative director of Yves Saint Laurent. You'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? Speaker 1 (3:31) I think, I still don't know if it was Crash by David Cronenberg. Speaker 1 (3:40) I mean, in French it's called Le Labyrinthe des Passions from Pedro Almodovar. Speaker 2 (3:44) Oh, yeah. Speaker 1 (3:46) It's one of those. And I have the feeling that my work is really in the middle of those two films, between Crash and any film of Almodovar in the 90s. Yeah. Speaker 2 (4:04) Yeah. I love those directors, in particular David Cronenberg, because I... He was on Fashion Neurosis and I met him and just found him. Speaker 1 (4:17) That is amazing. Speaker 2 (4:19) He's so wonderful and so funny. Speaker 1 (4:23) Yeah, it's amazing. Being able to work with them years later when I was at Salon was for me, 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. Also, I was very close to work with Jean-Luc Godard. He died just a little bit before the project was started. It's crazy to... Speaker 1 (5:08) a boy from Belgium being able to work with those amazing artists. So, yeah. Speaker 2 (5:16) Because your parents often took you to museums as a child and 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? Speaker 1 (5:43) Aye. I don't think that I was... I mean, my parents, like, I came from, like, a very normal middle-class family. I mean, my parents were, like, immigrants from Sicily, so I think museum was not their priority when I was a kid. So I have the feeling they push me to be curious by myself. But we have no memories of going to the museum with them. So Francis Bacon and all those artists, I started to discover them through television, through books. Speaker 1 (6:31) through school, but more... It's more something that I want to learn more about than being fed with... with art done by... Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 2 (6:46) 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... Speaker 2 (7:03) And that's, you know, even if there's no obvious connection, it seems. Speaker 1 (7:09) Yeah, in a way, everything is linked to them. Everything makes sense, but you discover that years later, the result, the effect of that. Speaker 2 (7:20) Yeah. Speaker 1 (7:21) I think. Speaker 2 (7:22) That's true. Because you said, I guess there are so many Belgian designers because you get so bored. There's a suburb of London called Bromley, which is quite boring and dull. It's produced these amazing artists, including David Bowie and the writer Hanif Qureshi and Susie Cave and all sorts of intensely creative people. And when I think about Lee Bowery, who came from some obscure town in Australia. Speaker 2 (7:57) I wondered, do you need a certain order in your life to be able to create counterculture? Speaker 1 (8:05) I think it's important to get bored when you are a child. And I think it's super important to not having everything straight away. That's why I admire a lot the new generation. Because I'm an admirer. Speaker 1 (8:28) 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 it's important to find your way to culture Speaker 4 (8:56) or to anything. Speaker 2 (9:00) Just... 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. Speaker 2 (9:23) that sort of energizing force when an idea takes hold. Speaker 1 (9:27) But you need chaos to be creative? Speaker 2 (9:30) Well, there's a kind of, you know, 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 Speaker 1 (9:48) actually Speaker 2 (9:49) a lot of my childhood was incredibly boring when it was stable. And that I find that. Speaker 2 (10:00) Having experienced that situation where there is no distraction. Speaker 4 (10:05) It's a luck. Speaker 2 (10:06) Yeah. Speaker 4 (10:07) Yeah, totally. And Speaker 2 (10:08) it gives you a kind of language, a place that's familiar. You can know this terrible place you want to get out of. Speaker 1 (10:18) Yeah. You grew up in London? Speaker 2 (10:20) I grew up in... Speaker 2 (10:24) partly in London, mostly in Sussex in the country, which was where I was really bored. Could Speaker 4 (10:31) not be as boring as Brussels. Speaker 2 (10:35) Yeah, it was pretty, pretty dull, but... We Speaker 4 (10:39) were fighting for the bus. Which area was the most boring? Speaker 2 (10:44) Always, always when you grow up in a boring place, the exciting place to be is at a bus stop, I find. Speaker 4 (10:51) Yeah, yeah. There's all this Speaker 2 (10:52) kind of group activity and cigarettes and things. Speaker 4 (10:57) Totally. Speaker 2 (10:59) And when did you feel clothes could be a tool in your life? Speaker 4 (11:05) I always were attracted to clothes and it was more like Speaker 1 (11:12) image than real clothes, actually. I was, I don't know, maybe it was when I saw the first, I mean the first, the early career of Jean-Paul Gaultier. Speaker 1 (11:29) 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 Laia and Gianni Versace. But I think it's because in my generation, that's those designers who get the most... Speaker 1 (11:56) or they were the more popular on TV. That's how fashion entered my life. So I think they had a huge impact on my career, but it was more about the image they were giving more than the clothes. Speaker 2 (12:17) And how did your mother dress? Speaker 1 (12:20) My mother, I mean, my memory of my mother was like very... Speaker 1 (12:27) classic in a way. I remember her heel. I mean, she had like a closet with older heel. And I remember I still, Speaker 4 (12:37) I love to open that closet and to admire like... her shoes. Wow, Speaker 2 (12:43) that's so nice. Speaker 4 (12:44) I have memories of like 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 pushed her to... Speaker 4 (13:07) to be more daring with her clothes. Speaker 2 (13:09) Really? Speaker 4 (13:10) Yeah. And thank God she didn't listen to me. Speaker 2 (13:15) Blue shirt with what, a skirt? I'm trying to picture her in your home, like her silhouette. Speaker 4 (13:25) My mother? Speaker 2 (13:26) I Speaker 4 (13:27) remember she had like a pencil skirt and I always asked her to... Speaker 4 (13:33) I want her to buy a skirt with a slit on the legs. And she was like, no, never. That's so great. It's Speaker 1 (13:42) so Speaker 4 (13:42) cool to dress like that. And she was like, no. She was a secretary, so I imagine it would be strange to go to the office with a high slit skirt. Speaker 2 (13:57) That's wonderful. Speaker 2 (14:00) 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. Speaker 4 (14:11) That's the best, yeah. Speaker 2 (14:12) Yeah. Speaker 4 (14:13) I was always like very judging. Speaker 2 (14:21) Because 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? Speaker 1 (14:34) I think for my generation, Madonna was like, she opened a lot of doors for us. Speaker 1 (14:42) 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 the designer. Speaker 4 (14:58) She dared to wear a body, she dared to wear a dress with the boob Speaker 1 (15:05) out, and nobody was doing that back then. Speaker 1 (15:09) Knowing her now, you can feel that everything was like very thought, even back then was not for free. Everything she was doing was like, they're like a meaning, like a purpose. And Speaker 4 (15:22) I found it very inspiring. Speaker 2 (15:29) Because I'm always, I mean, everyone's fascinated by her because she's so unapologetic. There's no kind of modesty. Speaker 2 (15:43) And it's really, I mean, it's just sort of... Speaker 1 (15:49) Yeah, she doesn't care about what people think about, like even aging and still doing whatever she wants to do. It's like, it's Speaker