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After more than a decade at Saint Laurent, it looks like the Vaccarello era may finally be drawing to a close. Although Saint Laurent and parent company Kering have yet to confirm the designer’s departure, rumors to that effect have been swirling for months, with fashion insiders claiming that his replacement will likely be Chloé designer Chemena Kamali. Even Vogue, in their review of Vaccarello’s most recent runway show, said the designer was likely to leave, and it’s not often that Vogue publishes anything even approaching a rumor, especially when that rumor involves a major advertiser. Vaccarello is also set to receive the International Designer of the Year Award at the 2026 CFDA Awards on November 2, so, if you ask us, any official announcement about his departure is not likely to come until after that.
Still, there was a sense of conclusiveness to the collection Vaccarello showed in Paris this time. And not just because the whole thing looked like one long finale — nearly every look rendered in head-to-toe gold. There was also a certain sobriety and a feeling of melancholia to the affair that started with the almost funereal music that opened the show and was underscored by the quote from Vaccarello that opened the show’s notes: “A light shines all the more brightly because we know it cannot be held. What passes sometimes leaves more light than what remains.”
If this is truly Vaccarello’s final show, there is no doubt that he is going out on a high.
The collection opened with a gold lamé safari jacket and matching pencil skirt, a meters-long silk organza scarf tied around the model’s throat and dragging decadently on the runway behind her. Like the gold, that scarf was reiterated throughout the first act of the show, recalling the signature look of American dance legend Isadora Duncan, who died in Nice, France in 1927 when her long, flowing silk scarf got tangled in the open-spoked wheels and rear axle of the automobile she was riding in and broke her neck.
Saint Laurent Spring 2027
More safari-inspired looks followed, in various shades and textures of gold. In recent years Vaccarello0 has often used repetion of forms, colors, and materials to explore the possibilities inherent in the late Yves Saint Laurent’s most iconic designs. Last season was an exploration of “le smoking.” Spring 2026 was all about leather skirt suits, plastic coats, and those famous rullfed gowns that Saint Laurent so often returned to, rendered by Vaccarello in an earthy rainbow of colors with only slight structural variations from one to the next. And, of course, who can forget the Fall 2024 show, which pushed the very limits of what one can do with pantyhose?
Saint Laurent Spring 2027
Saint Laurent Spring 2027
Saint Laurent Spring 2027
Saint Laurent Spring 2027
The sahariennes and trench coat looks that dominated the first half of Vaccarello’s show were also favorite’s of Saint Laurent, as was gold, which the house’s founder often used in his collections and once described as “magical.”
As always, there was a certain top-heaviness to Vaccarello’s looks, a sort of inverted triangle silhouette accentuated to nearly (but not quite) cartoonish proportions by the enormous shoulder pads that have become one of the designer’s most recognizable and enduring signatures.
Saint Laurent Spring 2027
Saint Laurent Spring 2027
Saint Laurent Spring 2027
The gilding of Vacarello’s collection was so extensive, so all encompassing that the final 10 looks, were almost a relief. Antierly black with only hints of gold in the form of buttons and accessories, they evoked the silence and sense of peace one has in the aftermath of a fireworks display, your heart still beating fast, adrenaline and dopamine still coursing through your body as you stare up at a suddenly still and empty sky with only starts to light it.
Saint Laurent Spring 2027
Saint Laurent Spring 2027
If this wasn’t Vaccarello’s final show — and we feel almost certain that it was — surely it will mark a shift in his creative practice and output for the brand from this point on. How could it not?
Check out the rest of the collection below.
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