Saint Laurent Summer 2023 Languid Elegance Campaign by Juergen Teller

Saint Laurent reveals its summer 2023 campaign, shot by Juergen Teller. The photographer tends to break with his more familiar images, expressing a rare sensuality for the German photographer— and particularly in this summer campaign.

Styled by Paul Sinclaire, the ensemble includes Awar Odhiang, Camille Chifflot, Chaima Ameziane, Freja Beha Erichsen, Marilou Hanriot.

Anthony Vaccarello of Saint Laurent has always embraced an innate sensuality among the house’s clients, one toned with a high degree of body confidence.

The Sun Rises Again on the Human Body

“To me, the body says what words cannot,” Martha Graham, the revered, radical American modern dancer and choreographer, said about her dance movements.

As the sun rises once again on the human body in fashion, Graham and Vaccarello are in sync in a mutual embrace of a strongly unapologetic physicality — a languid elegance that is most appealing. Vaccarello studied Graham in the design of the summer 2023 collection.

Tubular dressing dominates the collection, beautifully-rendered dresses cut from two different weights of jersey: one heavier and opaque, giving a more constructed look; the other lighter and gauzier, gently—and barely—veiling the body underneath.

Vaccarello’s color palette was gloriously muted yet fearless for the season. There are no gimmicks — only sophisticated, quiet elegance that is not on blast. Make no mistake, it’s an elegance of refusal.

A Perfect Campaign Video | Music by Ryuichi Sakamoto

A quiet but willful potency is thriving in the campaign’s atmosphere. And most decidedly so in the campaign video, with music by Ryuichi Sakamoto. . . . OMG! He passed on March 28.

I am so impacted because I began my day reading about mushrooms and funghi communicating — but in a sound space that humans cannot hear.

This is not factually or conceptually new to me, and I was searching for new research in the last month. After watching the hauntingly beautiful campaign video, I googled Sakamoto and listened to him speaking of wanting the sounds of nature that we cannot hear — or are oblivious to — incorporated into his music.

I wondered if he knew about plants communicating with each other — many people now know this is a scientific fact. And that’s where I read about him leaving us last week. The New York Times interviewed the artist in 2021, when he was being treated for rectal cancer.

It’s a very informative article about his art and music, if you were as impacted by the Saint Laurent Summer 2023 video as I was. Languid elegance is the perfect descriptor for this way of being.

Do not be fooled by the dark glasses, though. It is very much a state of resolute awareness about the world. Like a panther, the Saint Laurent woman quietly springs into action.

Juergen Teller captures that awareness in the models’ images. There’s an abundance of synchronocity and energy alive in this post. ~ Anne