Saint Laurent presents its Winter 2025 men’s campaign under the direction of Anthony Vaccarello, who enlisted photographer and filmmaker Glen Luchford to craft a visual dialogue between youth and age. The result includes a series of cinematic portraits and two short films starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Christopher Walken, each actor delivering a performance grounded in contrast and emotional charge.
Luchford constructs the campaign around a fictional conversation between different stages of life. Taylor-Johnson plays the figure of impulsive youth, full of hunger and defiance. His physicality carries echoes of 1970s-era Yves Saint Laurent images, images that celebrated provocation and self-display. Walken, in contrast, brings an anchored presence. His stillness reflects experience, control, and a quieter sense of self.
The entire campaign leans into a visual language drawn from the 1980s, with sharp references to black-and-white photography and shadowed interiors. Luchford draws a clear influence from Robert Mapplethorpe, who photographed a Saint Laurent campaign in 1983. While that earlier series relied on classical forms and erotic tension, Luchford picks up those cues and applies them to a contemporary frame.
In one short film, Taylor-Johnson moves through scenes of emotional and physical unrest. His expressions shift from pain to fixation to eventual release. The performance doesn’t follow a single thread but moves in waves, brief flashes of vulnerability balanced by charged sensuality. While the mood suggests weight and inner turmoil, moments of levity cut through, hinting at humor and irreverence beneath the surface.
A second video focuses on Walken, whose every move suggests purpose. He appears to navigate between moods with quiet precision. In one moment, he shows guarded tension; in another, a relaxed, almost amused detachment. His presence adds depth to the campaign, reinforcing the contrast set up by Taylor-Johnson’s performance.
Vaccarello’s art direction steers the images away from traditional glamour. The focus rests on intimacy, on the textures of fabric against skin, on glances that linger a second too long, on bodies that feel caught between instinct and discipline. These moments of friction and balance define the campaign’s mood.
The casting plays a central role. Taylor-Johnson’s raw presence recalls the brand’s past provocations but grounds them in present-tense emotion. Walken’s layered performance avoids caricature, instead revealing control built over time. Neither man performs a single version of himself; each shifts between states, revealing character as something changeable and unguarded.
The decision to use black-and-white photography throughout deepens the mood. Without color, the focus turns to light, shadow, and form. Luchford uses these elements to underline contradiction: hard edges meet fluid motion, close frames isolate the body, and still moments build toward expression.
