Anthony Vaccarello Leaves Saint Laurent After 10 Years: The End of a Golden Era?

il y a 3 jours

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From €3.3 billion in annual revenue to a final runway bathed in gold, the Belgian designer leaves behind a powerful legacy. But as luxury fashion confronts a changing market, his departure raises a bigger question: can Saint Laurent reinvent itself without losing the very identity he spent a decade refining?

PARIS Some fashion departures feel inevitable. Others arrive just as a designer’s world seems to have reached its most recognisable form. Anthony Vaccarello’s exit from Saint Laurent belongs to the second category.

On 9 October 2026, the French luxury house officially announced that its creative director was leaving after ten years at the helm. The news confirms what had been circulating since the summer: the designer’s extraordinary chapter at one of Paris’s most influential fashion houses has come to an end. His successor is expected to be announced separately. Reuters and Vogue reported the announcement on the same day.

The timing is striking. His final Spring/Summer 2027 collection, presented in Paris on 29 September, was a spectacle of gold, black and unmistakable Saint Laurent codes. Beneath the Eiffel Tower, Vaccarello presented a succession of sharp silhouettes, saharienne jackets, trench coats, pencil skirts and eveningwear. The collection moved from gold into black, a sequence that Vogue interpreted as a fitting visual farewell.

It was beautiful, controlled and unmistakably his. Yet it also invited a question that is becoming increasingly relevant in luxury fashion: when a designer has perfected a signature, what happens when that signature begins to feel familiar?

A Decade That Changed Saint Laurent

Appointed in April 2016 to succeed Hedi Slimane, Vaccarello inherited a house with a formidable identity and a commercially successful predecessor. The Belgian designer, trained at Brussels’ La Cambre fashion school, brought a distinctive combination of precise construction, sensuality and provocation.

His Saint Laurent was not about abandoning the past. It was about intensifying it.

Black tailoring, exposed skin, powerful shoulders, sheer fabrics and an almost cinematic approach to femininity became recurring elements of his visual language. The woman he dressed was independent, sometimes severe, often seductive, and rarely interested in conventional elegance.

Under his direction, Saint Laurent became more than a runway attraction. Its shows, frequently staged against the Parisian skyline, reinforced the brand’s international image, while its cultural ambitions extended into cinema through Saint Laurent Productions, launched in 2023.

The commercial results were substantial. According to Vogue, Saint Laurent’s revenue reached approximately €3.3 billion in 2022, more than tripling during Vaccarello’s tenure from its earlier levels. Reuters reported annual revenue above €3 billion in 2023. This was not simply a successful creative appointment. It was a decade in which a coherent aesthetic became a global luxury proposition.

Why Is He Leaving Now?

Here, the facts matter more than speculation. Neither Saint Laurent nor Kering publicly identified creative exhaustion, artistic disagreement or a personal dispute as the reason for Vaccarello’s departure. It would therefore be misleading to present any of these explanations as established fact.

The broader business context, however, is revealing.

Saint Laurent’s revenue declined by 9% in 2024 and a further 6% in 2025, according to Reuters, before stabilising broadly in 2026. These figures reflect a challenging period for luxury fashion, rather than proving that the designer’s collections were responsible. Kering is also undergoing a wider strategic reset under chief executive Luca de Meo. Creative leadership changes across major brands, pressure on financial performance and the need to rebuild momentum in important markets have made renewal a priority for the group. Saint Laurent was among the last major Kering houses to retain its creative director through this period of upheaval.

The most credible interpretation, therefore, is that Vaccarello’s departure takes place at a moment when the group is reassessing its future. Whether the decision was driven primarily by business strategy, mutual agreement or a desire for a new creative chapter has not been officially established.

When a Signature Becomes a Question

There is another dimension to this story, one that goes beyond financial results. Vaccarello’s strength was consistency. He understood the tension between Yves Saint Laurent’s revolutionary heritage and the contemporary appetite for clothes that communicate confidence, sexuality and power. His collections repeatedly explored that territory, refining familiar codes rather than discarding them. But consistency carries a risk. Over time, a distinctive vocabulary can become a formula, and refinement can begin to resemble repetition.

His recent collections offer an opportunity to debate that tension. The emphasis on sculptural tailoring, sheer textures, dramatic outerwear and controlled sensuality has remained central to the house’s identity. For admirers, this continuity is precisely what makes his Saint Laurent so compelling. For more critical observers, it raises the question of how much further the same aesthetic can evolve.

That is an editorial question, not a proven explanation for his exit. There is no verified evidence that Kering asked him to leave because he had run out of ideas. Nevertheless, the distinction matters. In luxury fashion, commercial success does not automatically settle the question of artistic renewal. A house can remain desirable while its creative language becomes increasingly predictable to some observers.

What Comes After the Gold?

Vaccarello leaves Saint Laurent with a formidable legacy: a clearly defined visual identity, international visibility and a business that expanded significantly during his tenure. His successor will inherit more than an archive. They will inherit an established world, one that customers recognise and that the next creative director must either extend or challenge.

That is no easy task. Change too much, and the house risks losing the coherence that helped make it successful. Change too little, and the next chapter may struggle to justify its existence.

For Saint Laurent, the challenge is not simply to find another designer. It is to discover what the brand should become after ten years of Vaccarello’s vision. His golden farewell may ultimately be remembered as a celebration of what he achieved and as the moment the house began asking what comes next.

For now, the reasons behind his departure remain officially undisclosed. What is certain is that a defining chapter in contemporary Parisian fashion has closed, leaving Saint Laurent at the threshold of a new creative era.

Patricia Holdener

Editor-In-Chief

Luxe Magazine Switzerland