Overview
- Kering and Saint Laurent confirmed on Friday that Anthony Vaccarello has stepped down after a decade as the house’s creative director and publicly thanked him for strengthening the brand’s identity and cultural influence.
- The announcement follows Vaccarello’s opulent gold‑themed Spring 2027 show in Paris on September 29 that industry observers read as a final collection and included a symbolic onstage gesture interpreted as a farewell.
- Chemena Kamali, currently creative director at Chloé and a former Saint Laurent design director, is widely reported by industry outlets as the leading candidate to succeed Vaccarello though Kering has not yet made a formal appointment.
- Vaccarello leaves a clear commercial record: he helped drive Saint Laurent’s rise to roughly €3.2–3.3 billion in the early 2020s before revenues fell to about €2.6 billion in 2025 during a wider slowdown, and Kering now wants to regain momentum in Asia and expand menswear and jewelry.
- Beyond runway work, Vaccarello expanded Saint Laurent into film and publishing by founding Saint Laurent Productions and Saint Laurent Editions, cementing a decade‑long cultural footprint that the next creative director will inherit and be judged on.