Saint Laurent Winter 26: Simone, When the Envelope Becomes an Everyday Icon

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Anthony Vaccarello transforms a discreet reference to Yves Saint Laurent’s personal world into a new everyday silhouette, photographed by Juergen Teller.

There are certain objects whose elegance lies in their intimacy. A letter folded into an envelope, a handwritten note kept close, an accessory designed to accompany rather than announce itself. For Saint Laurent’s Women’s Winter 26 collection, Anthony Vaccarello turns this quiet vocabulary into a new expression of contemporary luxury: Simone, a handbag whose silhouette draws on the envelope pouches associated with the House’s heritage while bringing them decisively into the present.

The new season is presented through the creative direction of Anthony Vaccarello and the lens of Juergen Teller, with Loli Bahia, Anja Rubik, Yasmin Warsame, Laura Ponte and Lina Zhang among the models featured in the campaign. Saint Laurent officially presents Women’s Winter 26 as a collection by Vaccarello, with the campaign photographed by Teller.

From the intimacy of a letter to the rhythm of everyday life

At the heart of Simone is an idea that feels particularly natural for Saint Laurent: taking something personal and transforming it into something enduring.

According to the House, the design is inspired by Monsieur Saint Laurent’s personal letters and reinterprets the spirit of envelope pouches from the 1970s and 1980s. What was once conceived primarily as an intimate evening accessory is enlarged, refined and reimagined as a bag for everyday life.

The reference to letters is more than a decorative gesture. Yves Saint Laurent maintained a deeply personal relationship with written and visual correspondence throughout his life. The Musée Yves Saint Laurent Paris, for example, documents the designer’s long-running tradition of creating annual “LOVE” greeting cards, begun in 1970 and continued until 2007 for friends, collaborators and clients.

That connection between fashion and intimate communication gives Simone its particular emotional resonance. The envelope becomes not merely a shape, but a metaphor: something designed to carry what matters.

A softer architecture, sharpened by precision

Simone translates that idea through a silhouette that balances softness and structure. Its envelope-inspired construction is deliberately sleek, while the proportions and functionality have been developed for contemporary use.

The bag opens to reveal two compartments and a zipped pocket, while a magnetic closure maintains the uninterrupted purity of the flap. The House’s current product specifications confirm the same architecture, with a suede-lined interior in the soft-leather versions, bronze-tone brass hardware and a double-strap construction designed to be worn over the shoulder.

This is where the design moves beyond nostalgia. Rather than reproducing an archival shape, Vaccarello uses the envelope as a starting point and gives it a more elevated construction, placing craftsmanship, functionality and proportion at the centre.

The result is a bag that feels distinctly Saint Laurent: restrained in its vocabulary, but precise in its attitude.

The Double Cassandre, reinterpreted

The signature detail is the Double Cassandre, a dimensional interpretation of one of the House’s most recognisable codes.

Here, the emblem does not overwhelm the silhouette. Instead, it completes it, reinforcing the architectural character of the flap while preserving the clean lines of the design. The relationship between logo and form is therefore deliberately controlled—a balance that has become central to the modern Saint Laurent aesthetic.

Simone is offered in Medium and Large Double Handle versions, with variations in smooth leather, suede and python. The palette moves from black and sour raspberry to dark Mandarin, while suede introduces ombré olive and python appears in old brandy. Light bronze hardware completes the different versions.

Saint Laurent’s current Swiss product pages confirm the Medium and Large formats and the material variations, as well as the distinctive bronze-tone hardware and envelope construction.

An object designed to live with you

Perhaps the most compelling aspect of Simone is its ambition to become part of everyday life without losing the sense of occasion associated with a Saint Laurent accessory.

The transformation is subtle: the evening pouch becomes a day bag; the envelope becomes a practical architecture; a reference to the past becomes a contemporary object.

That is the quiet strength of the Women’s Winter 26 proposal. Anthony Vaccarello does not attempt to recreate Yves Saint Laurent’s past literally. Instead, he extracts a gesture, a proportion, an atmosphere and gives it another life.

Photographed by Juergen Teller, the collection places Simone within that same tension between intimacy and attitude. It is an accessory conceived around the idea of carrying something personal, yet designed with the confidence to move effortlessly through the contemporary wardrobe.

In Simone, the envelope is no longer simply something that seals a letter.

It becomes something you carry.

Patricia Holdener

Editor-In-Chief

Luxe Magazine Switzerland