Saint Laurent usually looks most at home after dark. Anthony Vaccarello has built an entire language around black tailoring, sharp shoulders, bare skin and the kind of glamour that seems designed for somewhere you probably weren't invited. For Men's Summer 26, he did something more interesting: he let the light in.

Presented at Paris's Bourse de Commerce, the collection imagines a space somewhere between Paris and Fire Island, looking back to 1974, when Yves Saint Laurent retreated from the pressures surrounding him and found a different kind of freedom. Vaccarello doesn't turn that history into costume. Instead, he uses it to explore a Saint Laurent man who reveals himself without ever giving everything away.

DESIRE, WITHOUT THE THEATRE

The silhouette does most of the talking. Shoulders are extended, waists pulled tightly inward and trousers sit high before falling wide through the leg. Elsewhere, enormous shorts expose almost the entire leg beneath oversized shirts, ties and jackets. Silk and nylon move around the body rather than gripping it, giving even the most controlled looks an unexpected softness.

The colours make the shift even clearer. Instead of relying on Saint Laurent's familiar darkness, Vaccarello works with sand, pale ochre, dry moss and flashes of pool blue. In the afternoon light, everything feels more exposed. There is nowhere for the clothes — or the men wearing them — to hide, yet the collection never becomes loud about its sensuality.

THE SAINT LAURENT MAN DOESN'T NEED TO EXPLAIN HIMSELF

That restraint is what makes Summer 26 work. Vaccarello could easily turn the tiny shorts, severe waists and exposed bodies into obvious provocation, but almost nothing here feels desperate for attention. Even the more extreme proportions are treated with complete seriousness. A shirt remains buttoned and tied while the legs underneath are almost entirely bare; elsewhere, a huge trench makes the body beneath it seem smaller rather than stronger.

It creates a masculinity built around contradiction. The Saint Laurent man can be powerful and delicate, formal and exposed, guarded and unmistakably sexual at the same time. Vaccarello isn't trying to resolve those opposites. He makes the tension between them the point.

The setting quietly mirrors that idea. Céleste Boursier-Mougenot's clinamen installation fills a circular pool with porcelain bowls that drift, collide and create sound without visible choreography. Around it, the models move with similar control: nothing appears hurried, yet nothing is completely still.

SUMMER LOOKS BETTER THIS WAY

Perhaps the strongest thing about Men's Summer 26 is how little Saint Laurent needs to change in order to feel different. The shoulders are still unmistakably Vaccarello. The tailoring remains severe. The attitude is still pure Saint Laurent. But removing the darkness exposes another side of the house, one that feels lighter without becoming casual and sensual without becoming obvious.

That is ultimately the appeal of Vaccarello's Saint Laurent man. He doesn't need novelty for novelty's sake, and he doesn't need to announce what kind of man he is. The waist gets tighter, the shorts get shorter, the light gets brighter — and somehow the mystery remains.