The polymer steppers, Vacarello explained, were a menswear riff on the transparent TPU stilettos he presented on the women’s runway last season: a classic silhouette with a horny twist. Regarding the footwear, the designer said, “I always like the fetish things in a way, and I like to see them walking barefoot.” Wearing them with socks, he vehemently argued, would defeat the purpose. “It’s the fine line between classy and kinky.”
Vacarello has upped the kinky factor with each new season, from the thigh-high leather waders seen ’round the World Wide Web (and in this magazine) to the glossy latex sock-shoes that Saint Laurent ambassador-darling Connor Storrie wore—with a matching trenchcoat, diabolical—in the blazing heat to Thursday’s runway presentation. “I’m very hot! I’m sweating my ass off,” the Heated Rivalry star said outside of the show, incidentally supporting my earlier point. (Certainly, whether Storrie will wear the clear plastic lace-ups to the next runway show is more a matter of “when” than “if.”)
To that end: It’s hard not to consider wearing latex socks or plastic shoes on a hot summer’s day without thinking of the consequences of their human application. What about…condensation? Those who were paying attention to fashion in 2018 may remember the infamous Yeezy PVC heels. (This wasn’t limited to the footwear, either: This collection also featured unsubtle leather briefs.) Not to put too fine a point on it, but where there’s heat, there’s moisture. Kinky, indeed.
Funnily enough, the presentation began with steam: a rupture of wet fog that emerged from the rotunda floor. The fog itself was a sculpture called Cloud #07156, an immersive fog installation by the Japanese artist Fujiko Nakaya, and it billowed around the room, sometimes obscuring the models on the runway, and left beads of condensation on the floor.
The mercurial mist emphasized Vaccarello’s theme this season, of the shifts between presence and absence. A press release for the collection described it as “a rejection of our need to always know, always speak, always see. We have forgotten the pleasure of the unknown, the unseen and the unspoken.” The pleasure of the unseen, certainly. Except, of course, when it comes to feet.
