| Anthony Vaccarello is leaving Saint Laurent after ten years as creative director, according to the house’s announcement described in the article. Appointed in April 2016, he oversaw revenue growth to €3.3 billion in 2022. Saint Laurent has not named his successor. Kering is targeting growth in menswear, jewelry, and leather goods. |
Nobody was surprised. Friday, October 9, Saint Laurent confirmed that Vaccarello is leaving after 10 years as creative director. Half of Paris had been predicting it since the summer. The statement was short. It said Vaccarello “played a key role in Saint Laurent’s development, helping to strengthen its identity and influence across the worlds of fashion and culture” and promised to announce the new creative director soon. The real question was never whether he would leave. Rather, it was why a house at the top of the Lyst Index would let go of the man who put it there.
You could feel the end coming at his last show. On September 29, ten years and two days after his debut, Vaccarello presented 49 gold-toned looks. The models walked under three huge, candlelit chandeliers with the Eiffel Tower glittering behind them. Then came ten looks in black. Those familiar with the archive immediately recognized the reference. Yves Saint Laurent ended his Fall 1991 Rive Gauche collection with gold. Vaccarello reversed the order and faded to black. In hindsight, it reads less like a collection and more like a farewell letter written in fabric and addressed to anyone who knew where to look.
He gave no interviews before the show, which was unusual for him. Guests received black calla lilies and a card describing the collection as personal and emotional. Nicole Phelps reviewed it for Vogue, describing him as “as strong-willed as he is soft-spoken, a designer resolutely unwilling to bend to trends.” She ended her review with a line from Robert Frost: “Nothing gold can stay.” She was right.
Most people are naming Chemena Kamali as the next creative director of Saint Laurent. She knows the building. Kamali was the women’s ready-to-wear design director under Vaccarello from 2016 until 2023, when she was promoted to creative director at Chloé. Kering has confirmed nothing. Choosing Kamali would signal continuity rather than rupture: she already speaks the house’s language, and she has proven at Chloé that she can transform an archive mood into products that sell. However, there is a notable gap for anyone who follows the men’s side. Kamali has an extensive background in womenswear, but Kering has recently identified menswear as one of its primary growth targets.
Luca de Meo, who became Kering’s chief executive in September 2025, was gracious in the announcement. “I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Anthony for his contribution to Saint Laurent over the past 10 years,” he said. “Through his creative vision and exacting standards, he has contributed to strengthening the enduring influence of one of France’s greatest couture houses as we embark on a new chapter in its history.“
Cédric Charbit, president and chief executive of Saint Laurent, was even more complimentary. “During his tenure, Anthony put Saint Laurent on a remarkable trajectory, elevating the house to the forefront of desirability and image while accomplishing exceptional creative and cultural work,” he said.
During a call with analysts, Kering stated that the decision was driven by the brand’s long-term prospects and was not related to its recent financial performance, according to Barclays. The group wants to grow women’s daywear, menswear, and high-end leather goods in Asia. At its capital markets day in Florence last April, de Meo set ambitious targets. By 2030, the company expects to more than double its menswear sales, triple its jewelry sales, double sales to its top clients, and generate at least €500 million from entry-level products. De Meo told analysts, “The next chapter is how to reawaken and reinvigorate icons to transform them into products that transcend the fashion cycle.” Read that list carefully, and it sounds like a business plan rather than a creative brief. For men, doubling menswear sales in four years is the most important line: it means the Saint Laurent man is about to be pursued far more aggressively than under a designer whose heart, as evidenced by his runway choices, often lay with the women’s collections.
I find that explanation hard to accept entirely. Saint Laurent has been in the Lyst Index top five for 10 consecutive quarters. Vaccarello will receive the International Designer of the Year award at the CFDA Awards in New York on November 2. He is also one of six nominees for Designer of the Year at the Fashion Awards in London on November 30th. This year, the house arranged magazine covers for his anniversary. It also produced a 90-minute documentary about him with Terminal 9 Studios. These are unusual moves for a designer you plan to replace. A more likely explanation is that the decision was made quickly once the 2030 targets were set, and someone at the group level concluded that a designer who rarely featured handbags in his shows was not the right person to triple jewelry sales.
Here is what he inherited. Under Hedi Slimane, revenue rose from €354 million in 2011 to €974 million in 2015. That looked hard to follow. Vaccarello did just that. By 2022, sales had more than tripled to €3.3 billion, with an operating margin above 30 percent.
Then the luxury boom cooled. Revenue declined for three consecutive years, reaching €2.64 billion in 2025 — a 6 percent decrease at comparable exchange rates. Gucci fell 19 percent that year. Part of Saint Laurent’s decline was due to its decision in 2023 to pull back from wholesale. The company returned to growth in the first half of 2026. In May, Charbit summed up the period bluntly when he spoke to the Financial Times: “The industry’s growth has been extraordinary but not sustainable.” In context, a 6 percent dip while Kering’s flagship brand lost nearly a fifth of its sales is less a failure than a sign of resilience. Saint Laurent was the group’s shock absorber during the downturn, not its problem.
Vaccarello was 34 years old when he was appointed by Francesca Bellettini, the chief executive at the time, in April 2016, four days after Slimane left. Born in Brussels to Sicilian parents, he studied sculpture at La Cambre. He won the Hyères festival in 2006 with a collection inspired by La Cicciolina. He then worked at Fendi and started his own label in 2009, winning the ANDAM prize in 2011. Then, he ran Versus for Donatella Versace.
He once described his background with real candor. “I have the Belgian way of constructing clothes, focusing on their construction and deconstruction. Maybe my Italian side is the sexy side,” he told Vogue Australia in 2015.
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Both sides were evident at Saint Laurent. Strong shoulders. Heavy leather jackets. There was also faux fur, saturated color, sheer cocktail dresses, chunky costume jewelry, and very high heels. He usually built a show around one silhouette or one chapter of the house’s past. Starting in fall 2019, he took the founder’s proportions to extremes that were almost uncomfortable to look at. That was the point. Handbags rarely appeared on his runway, a strange choice for a French megabrand that sells so many Sac de Jour and Icare bags. For men’s fashion, that same sculptural instinct produced the house’s defining silhouette of the decade: sharp-shouldered tailoring and long, lean leather, which made Saint Laurent menswear recognizable at a glance, without a logo.
His sets were enormous. One season, it was a waterfall. The next season, it was a hedge of hydrangeas shaped like the Cassandra logo. He maintained tight control over the brand’s image, even requiring that party photos be published in black and white only.
His most lasting idea may be outside of clothing. He founded Saint Laurent Productions in 2023, and it has backed films by Jacques Audiard, Pedro Almodóvar, Jim Jarmusch, and Paolo Sorrentino. The company has won awards for Emilia Pérez and Father, Mother, Sister, Brother. He also started Saint Laurent Editions for books and fanzines and opened a shop and gallery called Saint Laurent Babylone on the Left Bank. Yves dressed Catherine Deneuve for Belle de Jour. Vaccarello produced the films himself. The house has always had ties to cinema. He provided them with a budget and a logo. One of the quieter questions his departure raises is whether that budget will survive a plan built around entry-price products and jewelry growth. Arguably, it is the most important question to watch.
The people around him showed the same reach: Kate Moss, Anja Rubik, Zoë Kravitz, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Rosé, and Madonna. From the founder’s era, he kept Catherine Deneuve and Betty Catroux.
Saint Laurent is a hard house to hold. Alber Elbaz, Tom Ford, Stefano Pilati, and Hedi Slimane all succeeded the founder, who retired from couture in 2002 and passed away in 2008. Vaccarello lasted longer than all of them. In my opinion, he has done more for the house than anyone since Yves.
What will he do next? He hinted at an answer in 2024 when he spoke with Pamela Golbin for The Wrap. “Saint Laurent is the most beautiful house, the Holy Grail of houses,” he said. What can top that? The only thing you can do is start something completely different,” he said.
He is 44. He has plenty of time.
For customers, the transition will be slow to show in stores. Collections designed under Vaccarello will continue to arrive for a season or two after he leaves, so the last pieces bearing his signature—the tailoring, the leather, and the gold-and-black finale—will remain on the racks of the Rue Saint-Honoré and Left Bank boutiques for a while. If there is a Vaccarello jacket you have been considering, now is the time to buy it. Further out, the €500 million entry-price target suggests a Saint Laurent that will be more accessible, with smaller leather goods, eyewear, and accessories. It will be harder to recognize as the uncompromising house of the last decade.
Whoever replaces Vaccarello will inherit a well-managed company. Kering says its large stock of carry-over leather goods will keep products flowing through the change. The successor will also receive a list of targets that leaves little room for poetry. That may be the real change here. The gold show looked back at the archives. The next show will be judged on sales. Vaccarello was hired to make Saint Laurent desirable. His successor is being hired to expand the brand. The next few years will show whether a brand built on desire can survive being run like a spreadsheet.