If some of the styles in Anthony Vaccarello’s debut for Saint Laurent looked dated, that was the point. He took Monsieur’s evolving friendship with Paloma Picasso as his inspiration, giving it a contemporary twist.

In the couturier’s hands, the golden child and a style icon in her own right — who first raised eyebrows wearing flea-market garb and who lent her penchant for provocation to Saint Laurent’s Scandal collection of 1972 — came to epitomize the big-shouldered, excess-oozing 80s.

Vaccarello recreated this cheeky blend of glamour and kitsch in the house’s first outing since the departure of Hedi Slimane, from whom the collection, too, seemed to draw.