Anthony Vaccarello’s Golden Goodbye

There are quiet ways to mark a decade. Saint Laurent chose a living ingot.

Beneath enormous chandeliers at the Trocadéro, with the Eiffel Tower performing in the background, Anthony Vaccarello sent out almost an entire collection in gold: brittle gold, liquid gold, Byzantine gold, disco gold, old gold and gold that appeared to have been poured directly onto the body.

Then came black.

Ten final evening looks, Charlotte Gainsbourg singing in a tuxedo and Vaccarello taking his bow beside Anja Rubik. It looked less like a seasonal finale than an ending.

A farewell—officially or otherwise

Reports have placed Vaccarello at the end of his Saint Laurent tenure, although the house has not formally announced a departure. The show notes did little to quiet the speculation: “What passes sometimes leaves more light than what remains.”

Fashion is extremely good at turning an unconfirmed rumour into a full production. But even without the industry whispers, Summer 2027 reads as a summation.

Vaccarello has spent ten years refining a very particular Saint Laurent woman: long-legged, sharply shouldered, sexually self-possessed and generally on her way somewhere after dark. Here, he gilded her entire wardrobe.

Not a retrospective. A victory lap in 24-carat lamé.

Everything Yves, through Vaccarello

The collection returned to the archetypes Yves Saint Laurent established: the saharienne, the trench, the blouse, the wrap skirt and the severe little suit. Alongside them came Vaccarello’s own additions to the house vocabulary—enormous shoulders, short hemlines, precise pencil skirts and coats cut with the authority of architecture.

The clever part was the repetition. Fifty-nine looks in one dominant colour should have become numbing. Instead, texture did the work normally assigned to palette.

Brocade held the light. Lamé moved it. Metallic cotton made it practical. Latex made it slightly indecent. Guipure lace turned it into shadow.

The return of unapologetic glamour

There is no false modesty here. No “elevated essential” language. No attempt to convince us that a beige cashmere crewneck is a radical cultural object.

This is glamour as a complete proposition: gold pencil skirts, chandelier earrings, jewelled turbans, fur-trimmed cuffs, patent jackets and shoes that appear to have been made from a snake dipped in bullion.

It arrives at exactly the moment luxury has become nervous about looking too luxurious. Sales have slowed. Customers are questioning prices. The industry has spent several seasons discussing wearability, restraint and commercial reality.

Vaccarello’s answer was to make the fantasy impossible to miss.

Gold, then mourning

The final black looks changed the emotional temperature.

After so much radiance, the velvet and muslin appeared almost funereal. The shoulders remained commanding and the trains still occupied several postcodes, but the absence of gold made the closing passage feel private—a shadow moving across the spectacle.

If Vaccarello stays, this was a magnificent anniversary statement. If he leaves, it was an exceptionally controlled goodbye: every Saint Laurent code polished until it reflected his own decade back at us.

He did not attempt to erase Yves. He did something more difficult. He showed where Yves ended, where Anthony began and how completely the two had fused.

The Wonder verdict

Was every look necessary? Probably not. Repetition has always been part of Vaccarello’s method, and the gold occasionally tipped from hypnotic into relentless.

But a possible final collection should be allowed to overstate its case.

Ten years. Fifty-nine looks. One colour. Anthony Vaccarello left nothing unsaid—and almost nothing ungilded.

Runway images: Courtesy of Saint Laurent.