In a widely expected development that marks the end of a transformative era in contemporary luxury fashion, Saint Laurent and its star designer, Anthony Vaccarello, are officially parting ways. The Paris fashion house revealed the Belgian designer’s departure in a brief statement on Friday morning, praising his profound impact over the past ten years. The house noted that 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 added that it would soon unveil its new creative leadership.
The announcement comes directly on the heels of a Paris Fashion Week dominated by intense industry speculation that the 44-year-old designer would wind up his highly acclaimed tenure. His all-gold spring 2027 ready-to-wear show—a collection that marched under three monumental chandeliers and directly in the shadow of a twinkling Eiffel Tower—felt heavily like a swan song, whether it was officially acknowledged at the time or not.
Speculation regarding a potential successor is already swirling through international fashion capitals. Chemena Kamali, currently serving as the creative director of Chloé, is widely expected to succeed Vaccarello at the helm of the French luxury house. Kamali is far from a stranger to the iconic brand; she previously worked as Saint Laurent’s women’s ready-to-wear design director under Vaccarello from 2016 until 2023, stepping away only when she landed the top creative position at Chloé.
Leadership at Kering, Saint Laurent’s parent company, offered warm tributes to the outgoing designer. Luca de Meo, who assumed the role of chief executive officer of Kering in September 2025, expressed his appreciation in the official release. “I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Anthony for his contribution to Saint Laurent over the past 10 years,” de Meo 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 officer of Saint Laurent, also warmly thanked Vaccarello for his unwavering dedication to the storied house. “During his tenure, Anthony took Saint Laurent on a remarkable trajectory, elevating the house to the forefront of desirability and image, while accomplishing exceptional work both creatively and through his cultural impact,” Charbit added.
The prospect of a Vaccarello exit was viewed with a jaundiced eye by numerous fashion insiders, given the Belgian designer’s massive, dedicated fan base and the multiple undeniable signs of their fruitful collaboration. The house orchestrated a host of high-profile magazine covers and feature stories throughout the year linked directly to Vaccarello’s 10-year anniversary at the brand, and was even on the cusp of releasing a slick, 90-minute documentary exploring the designer’s winning approach, produced by Terminal 9 Studios.
Furthermore, commercial and critical validation remained exceptionally strong. The Lyst Index, a widely watched quarterly ranking of fashion’s hottest brands and digital products, consistently placed Saint Laurent in its top five spots for the last ten consecutive quarters. Industry accolades continued to roll in as well; Vaccarello is scheduled to receive the International Designer of the Year trophy at the 2026 CFDA Fashion Awards in New York City, and he stands as one of six distinguished nominees for Designer of the Year at the British Fashion Council’s upcoming Fashion Awards ceremony in London.
While Kering—which also owns Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga, Brioni, McQueen, and several prestigious jewelry houses—no longer breaks down annual revenues by individual brand except for Gucci, corporate reports noted that Saint Laurent successfully returned to growth in the first half of 2026. The house delivered a solid performance across North America and Western Europe, benefiting directly from robust client demand as Vaccarello’s newest collections continued to gain traction in the global marketplace. At comparable exchange rates, 2025 revenues at Saint Laurent had slipped 6 percent to 2.64 billion euros—a modest contraction when compared alongside a steeper 19 percent drop for sister brand Gucci during the same challenging economic period.
A designer naturally partial to the hot-blooded, daring, and nocturnal side of fashion, Brussels-born Vaccarello initially studied sculpture at La Cambre before bursting onto the international fashion radar in 2006. That year, he won first place at the prestigious Hyères International Festival of Fashion and Photography for a collection heavily inspired by Italian pop culture figure La Cicciolina. He subsequently honed his craft working at Fendi before launching his eponymous ready-to-wear collection in Paris in 2009. Two years later, he scooped the prestigious ANDAM fashion award, and in 2013 he was personally recruited by Donatella Versace to reinvigorate and rev up the Versus brand.
Once firmly settled into his role at Saint Laurent, Vaccarello quickly established himself as one of Paris Fashion Week’s most formidable and ambitious showmen. He routinely erected gob-smacking, monumental sets at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, installing a towering artificial waterfall one season and constructing a giant hedge of hydrangeas shaped into the house’s iconic Cassandra logo the next.
On the runway, he brilliantly evoked the raw essence of Saint Laurent through strong-shouldered tailoring, heavy-duty leather jackets, dramatic faux furs, saturated bold colors, wispy cocktail dresses, hulking statement costume jewelry, and killer heels. He typically concentrated each seasonal presentation on a specific, sharply defined silhouette or a juicy, subversive slice of brand lore. Interestingly, and quite unusually for a French luxury megabrand of its scale, he almost never featured handbags prominently on the catwalk—allowing at most a slim wallet—even as the company sold massive quantities of its popular Sac de Jour, Icare, Amalia, and 5 à 7 models.
Behind the scenes, brand strategy was quietly evolving to bolster accessories. WWD broke the news that the brand quietly recruited Johnny Coca, one of the luxury industry’s most prominent and accomplished handbag designers, who previously built his reputation working for major houses including Louis Vuitton, Celine, and Mulberry.
Vaccarello also kept an iron, uncompromising grip on Saint Laurent’s visual image, ensuring that all official party photographs were presented exclusively in stark black and white. At the same time, he aggressively widened the brand’s cultural affiliations and artistic footprint, most dramatically by establishing Saint Laurent Productions in 2023. The venture was created to finance and produce short and feature-length cinematic projects by acclaimed auteurs such as Jim Jarmusch, Pedro Almodóvar, and Jacques Audiard. In its remarkably short lifespan, the film production company has already accumulated multiple international awards and critical acclaim for projects like Emilia Pérez and Father Mother Sister Brother.
Further expanding the brand’s cultural ecosystem, Vaccarello established Saint Laurent Editions, an initiative specializing in independent books, zines, and fine art, anchored by a dedicated retail and gallery space dubbed Saint Laurent Babylone on the Left Bank of Paris. His personal and professional inner circle famously included cultural icons like Madonna, actresses Zoë Kravitz and Conner Storie, supermodels Kate Moss and Anja Rubik, singers Rosé and Charlotte Gainsbourg, alongside legendary figures from the original days of founder Yves Saint Laurent, such as Catherine Deneuve and Betty Catroux.
While Vaccarello was known primarily for his fiercely celebrated womenswear designs, he dedicated considerable energy in recent years to expanding Saint Laurent’s menswear offerings. He staged intimate, tightly edited menswear shows at the Pinault family’s Bourse de Commerce art museum, drawing direct inspiration from the founder’s signature personal style as well as the dark glamour of his womenswear collections.
Considered one of the absolute holy grails of Paris fashion, Saint Laurent owes its enduring prestige and global fame to a founding visionary who once held such a tight grip on international style that if he made a slight adjustment to a hemline or a subtle shift in a waistline, the ripples would instantly reverberate around the globe. Yves Saint Laurent is widely cited by fashion historians as the true inventor of modern ready-to-wear through his pioneering launch of the Rive Gauche collection in 1966. Throughout his career, the founder became internationally renowned for introducing beatnik fashions, utility safari jackets, the landmark Ballets Russes collection, an unparalleled mastery of color combinations, pristine tailoring artistry, designer denim, and the creation of a massive, highly lucrative fragrance and beauty business bearing a couturier’s name.
Looking ahead, it is understood that Kering plans to build aggressively upon the formidable foundation left behind by Vaccarello, spying significant commercial potential to expand the brand’s core daywear, menswear, and fine jewelry offerings. At the luxury group’s Capital Markets Day held in Florence, de Meo explained to analysts that “the next chapter is how to reawaken and reinvigorate icons, to transform them into iconic products that go beyond fashion cycles.”
In addition to elevating product categories, Saint Laurent has set ambitious long-term financial targets, aiming to double its sales to Very Important Clients (VICs) by 2030, while simultaneously striving to double its overall business footprint across Asia within the exact same timeframe.
