In fashion, gossip is just advance notice. It definitely is with Anthony Vaccarello leaving Saint Laurent
Anthony Vaccarello at his final Saint Laurent show
Rumours today, confirmation tomorrow. That’s the rhythm of the revolving door—now officially proven true with Kering and Saint Laurent confirming Anthony Vaccarello’s departure after a decade at the helm. What’s striking is that the clues were almost embarrassingly obvious. Mr Vaccarello’s spring/summer 2027 collection was drenched in gold, now reading less like a collection and more a choreographed farewell. With the exit is certain, it is hard not to wonder what his prerogative was, given that he knew he was on his way out. If one knows a collection will be remembered as the last chapter at a house, the incentives change dramatically. A buyer at the showroom will ask, “What will sell?” A departing artistic director will ask, “What will be remembered?” Those are completely different questions. One is directed entirely to the self. In all likelihood, Mr Vaccarello pondered: “If Kering will be announcing my exit, then everyone will be discussing my show while they do it.” We watched the show again after the Kering announcement. The standing ovation, the kissing of his son on the front row, the models all applauding. This was not just swan song; it was, in effect, self-mythology.
Many online commentators declare the show and the reveal a triumph for Mr Vaccarello. But, perhaps, the true winner is Boring Not Com. They must be looking at the Kering despatch with the chilling, detached composure of a pathologist watching a patient finally manifest the exact symptoms diagnosed weeks prior. What irritated people was not merely that they published rumours as fact so definitively. Fashion journalism has always lived on rumours. The old rumour mill, however, tended to present information with some humility—“sources suggest”. Today, the insider account projects a totally different energy—“I know so”. When enough stories turn out to be correct, the page acquires a kind of institutional swagger. “Performative insiderism”, it is apparently now called. The followers no longer experience the reveal as journalism. They experience it as someone enjoying the fact that they’re in the room where decisions were being made. There is discernible arrogance, of course, because being right is the brand. Challenge them if you dare.
The Saint Laurent show at the Trocadéro is arguably one of the biggest creative-director departures of the current reshuffle era. Mr Vaccarello didn’t merely succeed Hedi Slimane. He managed the far more difficult task: preserving the Saint Laurent myth while slowly bending it toward his own obsessions with the myth. He turned the house into a machine for glamour, spectacle, cinematic sexuality, and razor-sharp image-making while remaining remarkably consistent stylistically. But perhaps after a decade, the question in store is inevitable: do we need another leather jacket with those padded shoulders? Or another skimpy lace dress? Very few woman can be Zoë Kravitz. There is an unglamorous truth that fashion gossip often obscures. Creative directors rarely leave because they’re failures. Many leave because they become too successful at being themselves. Alessandro Michele comes to mind. Mr Vaccarello’s Saint Laurent became so coherent that after ten years, the strengths and limitations were very hard to separate. The first few years felt like a revelation. The next few years, like mastery. And then, as the Thais would say, same-same.
To be honest Anthony Vaccarello’s final show now looks almost comically legible. The industry spent weeks pretending it might not be a goodbye, while Mr Vaccarello was effectively sending guests through a gilded memorial to his particular decade. Even Yves Saint Laurent’s own swan song—haute couture in 2002—was modest in comparison, even with Catherine Deneuve singing at the end of the show. At the Trocadéro, Mr Vaccarello went strictly for the high octane. The chandeliers weren’t subtle. Not the gold either. Nor the melancholy. Fashion people just have a professional talent for acting surprised by things they’ve already decoded. The standing ovation was not for the spectacle although the show certainly was. The guests came prepared for a final flourish; they came to cheer their man, even when they probably told themselves they wouldn’t be buying any of the gold pieces. If Kering asked themselves the question we posed about how many leather jackets one could buy, the answer would probably be, “not enough to justify another decade.”
Screen shots: Saint Laurent/YouTube
