Anthony Vaccarello at Saint Laurent: A Decade of Power

Few designers inherit a name so deeply embedded in the history of women's fashion. Yves Saint Laurent had already rewritten the relationship between clothing, femininity and power, leaving behind a visual language that generations of designers would continue to reference. His creations belonged as much to cultural memory as they did to the archives, their influence extending far beyond the decades in which they first appeared.

For Anthony Vaccarello, the challenge was never confined to preserving that inheritance. How could those familiar codes continue to provoke desire in a world that had changed so dramatically since their creation? Over ten years, his answer gradually took shape through a singular vision, one that remained unmistakably Saint Laurent while becoming increasingly recognizable as his own.

The Weight of an Extraordinary Name

When Anthony Vaccarello arrived at Saint Laurent in 2016, the house was enjoying the commercial momentum established under Hedi Slimane, whose rock-and-roll vision had captured a younger generation of luxury consumers. Yet the responsibilities awaiting Vaccarello extended far beyond sustaining growth. Few names in fashion carry such a formidable creative inheritance. Yves Saint Laurent had already transformed the modern woman's wardrobe through Le Smoking, the Saharienne, the Mondrian dress and the revolutionary idea of luxury ready-to-wear. Each represented a moment when clothing challenged the conventions of its time.

Vaccarello's first collection, Spring/Summer 2017, offered an early indication of how he intended to approach that inheritance. Presented inside a former monastery undergoing renovation in Paris, the show opened with a black leather dress inspired by a 1982 Yves Saint Laurent design. Its exaggerated shoulders and sculpted bodice retained the original's unmistakable eighties character, while the shortened hemline and leather construction introduced Vaccarello's own provocative sensibility. Elsewhere, asymmetrical dresses, metallic fabrics and plunging necklines revealed a designer whose fascination with the female body had already developed through his eponymous label and work at Versus Versace.

His relationship with the archives would become increasingly sophisticated over the following decade. Yves Saint Laurent's vocabulary was extraordinarily expansive, encompassing masculine tailoring, sheer fabrics, extravagant eveningwear and the colors of distant artistic traditions. Vaccarello approached this history selectively, concentrating on those elements that could sustain an exacting visual identity. The sensuality of the early collections gradually acquired the discipline of precise tailoring, elongated proportions and increasingly controlled styling.

Such consistency also distinguished his tenure from fashion's recurring appetite for dramatic reinvention. Vaccarello allowed his Saint Laurent woman to mature, developing an aesthetic identity through subtle shifts in proportion, material and attitude. The designer's hand became unmistakable, even when the references remained deeply rooted in the founder's work.

The Woman Who Owns the Room

In 1966, Yves Saint Laurent introduced Le Smoking, adapting the masculine tuxedo for the female body at a time when women's relationship with formal dress was undergoing profound change. Its significance extended beyond the novelty of borrowing from menswear. The tuxedo offered women access to an established vocabulary of elegance and authority while asserting their freedom to define those qualities themselves. By the 1980s, the broader language of power dressing had become inseparable from exaggerated shoulders, structured jackets and the growing visibility of women in professional life.

Anthony Vaccarello inherited that history in a world where women had already claimed the suit as their own. The question was no longer whether they could wear it, but what its proportions could communicate about their presence.

His Fall/Winter 2023 collection provided a particularly striking answer. Beneath immense crystal chandeliers, models appeared in broad-shouldered jackets paired with narrow pencil skirts, cigarette trousers and delicate sheer stockings. The exaggerated upper body created an almost architectural silhouette, while the controlled proportions below sharpened its verticality. Oversized earrings, pointed heels and dark sunglasses completed a wardrobe that possessed the elegance of traditional tailoring with the visual intensity of an eighties fashion photograph.

What distinguished Vaccarello's interpretation was his treatment of the body itself. The amplified shoulder became an extension of personal space, giving the wearer a commanding physical presence. Beneath that imposing structure, exposed legs, transparent stockings and sharply defined waists preserved an overtly feminine sensuality. The masculine and feminine elements existed in deliberate tension, each emphasizing the other.

The original power suit had emerged alongside women's struggles for recognition in institutions historically dominated by men. Vaccarello's version belonged to an era in which personal image, sexuality and power intersected across professional, public and digital spaces. His woman could occupy a corporate office, a Parisian nightclub or a film premiere without surrendering the authority of her silhouette.

By 2023, the enlarged shoulders had become a recurring feature of his collections, appearing on tailored jackets, leather outerwear and sweeping coats. Their influence reached beyond Saint Laurent, contributing to the renewed prominence of eighties-inspired proportions across contemporary fashion.

Yves Saint Laurent had made the suit an enduring symbol of women's sartorial freedom. Anthony Vaccarello gave that symbol a new physical vocabulary, sharpening its lines until the silhouette itself became a declaration of power.

The Precision of Seduction

Beneath a perfectly tailored tartan blazer, black latex trousers clung to the legs like a second skin. The jacket's velvet collar and gilded buttons belonged to the codes of bourgeois elegance, while the glossy trousers introduced an almost confrontational sensuality. In Saint Laurent Fall 2020, these seemingly incompatible materials became an expression of Vaccarello's fascination with the tension between propriety and desire.

Throughout his tenure, that tension evolved into an extraordinarily precise design language. Sharp tailoring, elongated silhouettes, asymmetrical cuts and dramatic exposure remained recurring elements, yet their relationships changed from season to season. Fall/Winter 2022 introduced a quieter form of sophistication through fluid silk dresses, sweeping outerwear and sculptural proportions. The body, previously emphasized through abbreviated hemlines and pronounced cutouts, acquired an entirely different presence beneath generous lengths of fabric.

By Fall/Winter 2024, Vaccarello was questioning another familiar Saint Laurent signature: transparency. Drawing inspiration from the founder's provocative sheer blouses of the 1960s, he constructed an entire collection of delicate hosiery fabrics. Pencil skirts, draped dresses and bow-neck blouses appeared almost entirely transparent, their conservative shapes creating an intriguing contradiction with the revealing materials. The collection demonstrated how exposure could become an exercise in technical discipline, with the garment's construction controlling every movement of fabric against the body.

His approach to sensuality was remarkably deliberate. Bare skin could be framed by severe tailoring, while an oversized coat could create intrigue through the body it concealed. Even the familiar Saint Laurent palette of black, chocolate brown, olive and gold acquired new intensity through surface and texture.

Through these experiments, he established an aesthetic that existed beyond individual trends. The length of a skirt, the angle of a shoulder and the placement of a neckline became elements of a recognizable signature. His Saint Laurent woman could change her wardrobe considerably without losing the unmistakable attitude that defined her.

The Making of a Cultural Universe

Paris itself gradually became part of Vaccarello's creative vocabulary. Against the illuminated Eiffel Tower, his runway presentations unfolded with the theatrical precision of cinema, their monumental settings reinforcing the mythology of the Saint Laurent woman. Music, architecture and light shaped the atmosphere surrounding each collection, creating images that circulated far beyond the audience attending Paris Fashion Week.

The relationship between Saint Laurent and cinema had, of course, been established decades earlier. In 1967, Yves Saint Laurent designed Catherine Deneuve's wardrobe for Luis Buñuel's Belle de Jour, creating some of the most enduring fashion images in film history. His association with Deneuve revealed how costume could become inseparable from a character's psychological complexity and cultural identity.

Vaccarello expanded that relationship into a new institutional ambition. In 2023, he established Saint Laurent Productions, making the house an active participant in independent film production. The division debuted with Pedro Almodóvar's Strange Way of Life, followed by collaborations involving filmmakers including David Cronenberg, Jacques Audiard, Paolo Sorrentino and Jim Jarmusch.

Through these projects, the Saint Laurent name entered artistic conversations that extended beyond clothing and seasonal campaigns. Film offered Vaccarello another medium through which to cultivate the house's cultural identity, while his involvement in costume design maintained a direct connection to its creative heritage.

His circle of muses reflected a similar continuity. From Catherine Deneuve and Charlotte Gainsbourg to Zoë Kravitz and Rosé, the women associated with Saint Laurent represented different generations and expressions of the house's identity. The result was a cultural universe whose influence could be encountered on the runway, in cinema, on the red carpet and throughout contemporary popular culture.

The Value of a Singular Vision

Beyond the illuminated runways and meticulously constructed imagery, Vaccarello's vision was also taking shape in Saint Laurent's boutiques. The Le 5 à 7 shoulder bag, introduced in 2021, translated the house's Parisian sophistication into a compact everyday accessory, while the oversized Icare tote became another recognizable design of his tenure. Their success demonstrated the commercial appeal of the aesthetic principles established through his collections: clean proportions, confident silhouettes and carefully placed branding.

The financial record provides a revealing perspective on the scale of this transformation. Saint Laurent generated €1.22 billion in revenue in 2016, the year Vaccarello joined the house. By 2022, annual revenue had reached €3.3 billion, with recurring operating income exceeding €1 billion. The expansion reflected the combined contribution of creative direction, retail development, product strategy and the commercial leadership of the house.

Yet the trajectory also reveals the challenges of sustaining desirability in a changing luxury market. Saint Laurent's revenue declined from €3.18 billion in 2023 to €2.88 billion in 2024, before reaching €2.64 billion in 2025. These developments coincided with weaker luxury demand and strategic adjustments to distribution. By the third quarter of 2026, Kering was reporting renewed retail momentum at Saint Laurent, particularly in North America and Western Europe.

Such fluctuations complicate the familiar narrative of an uninterrupted creative triumph. Vaccarello's influence cannot be measured exclusively through sales, although the commercial expansion illustrates how successfully his aesthetic identity had been translated into a global luxury business.

His commitment to a tightly defined visual language also invited criticism. The recurring shoulders, abbreviated skirts, transparent fabrics and black tailoring could occasionally appear overly familiar. Yet that repetition carried strategic value. Consumers could recognize the Saint Laurent silhouette without relying on a conspicuous logo, while its accessories offered a consistent expression of the same identity.

For an industry frequently driven by seasonal novelty and creative-director changes, Vaccarello's decade demonstrated the cultural and commercial potential of sustained authorship. He continued refining vocabulary until it became an integral part of how contemporary fashion imagined Saint Laurent.

A Symphony in Gold and Black

Gold illuminated the Trocadéro on September 29, 2026. Beneath three monumental chandeliers, with the Eiffel Tower glittering in the distance, Anthony Vaccarello presented Saint Laurent SS27, the collection that would ultimately close his decade at Saint Laurent. Forty-nine gilded looks moved across the reflective runway, each interpreting the color through a different material, proportion or texture. Metallic cotton, brocade, lace, lamé and gold-leaf-coated latex transformed familiar Saint Laurent silhouettes into extraordinary studies of light.

Gold had long occupied a special place in Yves Saint Laurent's imagination, appearing throughout his couture collections as an expression of splendor, sensuality and artistic extravagance. Vaccarello approached that fascination with the discipline that had defined his own tenure. Safari jackets, structured coats and elaborate eveningwear emerged in successive variations, creating a visual rhythm that recalled the movements of a carefully composed symphony.

Then the gold disappeared.

The final ten looks were black, their velvet suits and voluminous evening dresses absorbing the light that had previously dominated the runway. The transition carried a quiet historical resonance, reversing the golden finale of Yves Saint Laurent's Fall/Winter 1991 Rive Gauche collection. Charlotte Gainsbourg's live performance accompanied the closing moments, lending an intimate human presence to the monumental spectacle.

What unfolded that evening could be read as the culmination of Vaccarello's creative relationship with the house. The grandeur of Yves Saint Laurent's legacy remained present, yet every proportion, texture and gesture bore the precision of the designer who had spent ten years refining its contemporary expression.

When Saint Laurent confirmed Vaccarello's departure on October 9, the collection acquired the significance of a final performance. Its golden procession celebrated the richness of the house's history. The black finale returned to the disciplined elegance that had become synonymous with his name.

The final notes of a symphony often draw their emotional force from everything that preceded them. For Vaccarello, those ten years had been spent developing a recognizable language of power, desire and restraint, one whose influence extended from the atelier to contemporary culture.

Yves Saint Laurent's revolutionary contribution was to expand the possibilities of women's dress. Vaccarello inherited that freedom and shaped it around the complexities of modern femininity, allowing strength and sensuality to coexist within the same impeccably controlled silhouette.

Perhaps the clearest evidence of his legacy lies in the image that remains: a woman dressed in a sharply tailored suit, her shoulders commanding the space around her, her elegance carrying an unmistakable edge. The silhouette belongs to the history of Saint Laurent, but its contemporary attitude bears Anthony Vaccarello's signature.

The music may have reached its final note, yet the language he composed will continue to resonate through fashion long after the curtain has fallen.