It might be 2022, but red-carpet rules have yet to be rewritten. Cinderella and Jessica Rabbit remain icons of glamour when it comes to getting dressed up, which perpetuates stale notions that suggest that a woman can be either good or bad; a lady or a vamp. Why not both at once, à la Marlene Dietrich?
The sight of the tuxedo-wearing star on screen in Morocco in 1930 was not only provocative. It was shocking. Thirty-six years passed until Yves Saint Laurent proposed the smoking (French for tuxedo) for women in his fall 1966 couture collection (Dietrich’s was borrowed from the boys). Vogue took to it right away, writing that the designer’s tuxedo was a “delicious little whittling of thin black wool; narrow pants, nipped-in jacket...opening on the most immaculate ruffled shirt, blazing white.” Not everyone felt the same. According to the Musée Yves Saint Laurent, only one was sold at the couture level, though the Rive Gauche version, priced at $100 in 1966 dollars (the equivalent of about $875.00 today) and modeled by François Hardy for Vogue, was a smashing success. There would be a smoking in every Saint Laurent collection until 2002.
This year marks 40 since Saint Laurent retired and 60 in the existence of the maison, events that are being celebrated with a joint exhibition in six museums in Paris. Anthony Vaccarrello, Saint Laurent’s creative director, closed his strong fall collection with four smokin’ smokings. He wasn’t the only designer who turned up the heat on this by-now classic look.
Will tuxedos make the leap from runway to the red carpet? That’s TBD. In the meantime, here are some of the options on offer.
