Truly, there are two things that became limiting for us in the year 2020 — dressing up and traveling overseas. In his just-unveiled Summer 2021 range, Saint Laurent‘s creative director Anthony Vaccarello decided to evoke both, all while boiling it down to the essence of things and employing a multitude of soft, pure shapes. Materials and silhouettes pulled from the brand’s late-’60s archives, touches of Monsieur Saint Laurent’s “Saharienne” seen on pocketed jackets and tunics throughout the range — looks like the designer has been feeling some sort of nostalgia for the years past.

“I wanted to focus on the essence of things, I think it’s a sign of the times,” Vaccarello explains. “But I didn’t want anything bleak or heavy. The desert, to me, symbolizes that yearn for serenity, open space, a slower rhythm. The clothes are also softer, the spirit of the collection is more gentle, stripped back.”

Clothing was not the only thing that Vaccarello decided to pare back on in this collection full of muted, enveloping colors. This season, the designer decided to take us back to the dunes — quite a jump from the elaborate, jaw-dropping shows he likes to put on during the times when uncertainty, turmoil, and worry have less of a presence in our society. Instead? Models walking in a single file across zigzagging sandbanks in a hypnotic film produced by the House’s creative accomplice Natalie Canguilhem and soundtracked by French musician and composer SebastiAn, their bodies adorned by the eye-catching Claude Lalanne jewelry.

The garments practically screamed with desire for comfort and confidence: filled with non-constricting yet flattering shapes, the collection encourages its wearers to go out after slipping on a tunic and trousers, or a silk blouse paired with rider shorts. A vareuse with spacious pockets and a long jacket with tidy shoulders offer to fill in as the quarantine-friendly versions of Le Smoking. The floral explosion of chiffon with fluffy marabout fringes and subtly sheer Liseuse are made for the indoorsy life we have all come to know, offering up a not-so-quaint charm, coming from a place somewhere between fantasy and fancy.

Watch the video revealing Saint Laurent’s Summer 2021 womenswear collection below: