Saint Laurent blooms with oversized drama, ’80s power and Madonna in Paris show

PARIS (AP) — At Saint Laurent, Anthony Vaccarello dialed up the drama Monday night at Paris Fashion Week with a set of gigantic white flowers that loomed like a cinematic backdrop. If the blooms hinted at delicacy, the clothes told another story: big, bold, and unafraid of excess. Madonna was in attendance, and at times she stole the focus — a burst of razzmatazz on and off the runway that amped the show’s already operatic charge.

Floor-sweeping gowns rippled with frills, evoking 1970s archival pieces and petals unfurling at twilight. They weren’t garments so much as visual arguments — “beauty as plural,” the house notes declared — gowns that embodied Vaccarello’s belief that esthetics are a language.

The designer’s penchant for oversize, a through-line of his tenure, reached new heights