Anthony Vaccarello on Nearly a Decade at Saint Laurent, His Famous Muses, & What's Next

From blockbuster runway shows to a growing presence in film and art, the designer explains how the luxury house is, for him, a key part of France's cultural heritage.

Mar 11, 2025 - 18:17

Anthony Vaccarello on Nearly a Decade at Saint Laurent, His Famous Muses, & What's Next

Spring 2019 “This look was for the finale that season,” says Saint Laurent designer Anthony Vaccarello. “The collection was all about draping, but blended with dresses, suits, and bodysuits.” All models wear Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello clothing and accessories throughout.

There is a legend that has long enveloped the house of Yves Saint Laurent: The designer, over his more than four-decade-long career, produced revolutionary, elegant fashion while his business partner, Pierre Bergé, made sure that an incredibly sophisticated image swirled around it all. But since the spring of 2016, when then 34-year-old Anthony Vaccarello was named creative director, something equally impressive has happened: Saint Laurent has managed to combine fashion excitement with commercial success. Thanks to Vaccarello and the company’s president and CEO, Francesca Bellettini, who hired him, it now has a significant amount of fashion credibility and has become a $3 billion business.

“Yves Saint Laurent was always someone who influenced fashion, who all of the other designers followed,” explains Vaccarello. “He designed haute couture, but it was not turned to the past—he was connected to the people of his era. It was almost always something new, exciting, and fresh for the time.”

The Saint Laurent design studio where Vaccarello works is in a grand 17th-century townhouse at 24 Rue de l’Université, on Paris’s Left Bank. Parked solo in the courtyard is his sleek black sedan, a Mercedes-Maybach S-Class. Up the marble staircase, the designer is sitting in his office, with its modernist furniture in black leather and views out to the historic garden. “When I arrived here, I tried to put myself in the place of Yves, to ask myself, ‘What would he have done to reach a younger audience?’ ” says Vaccarello. “That meant changing fabrics, for example, using materials that are more modern, taking elements from the past but adapting them to the world in which we live today.” To get a sense of his vision, we asked Vaccarello to pore over his own Saint Laurent archives, selecting some of his standout work from the past nine years.

Fall 2024 “This collection, titled ‘Collant,’ or ‘Hose,’ was important because it was the opposite of commercial—everything was ephemeral and fragile. This was a moment when everyone was afraid of losing clients and wanted to try to sell as much as possible. I wanted to calm down and do things that weren’t made to be sold. The show really made an impression.”

Anthony Vaccarello: Hair by Pawel Solis for Byredo at Artlist Paris.

Vaccarello, 43, had a quick ascent in fashion. Born and raised in Belgium—he’s half Italian and half Belgian—he studied at La Cambre, the noted fashion school in Brussels. After graduating, in 2006, he took his degree collection, inspired by the Italian porn star and politician La Cicciolina, to the Hyères International Festival of Fashion and Photography, where he won the grand prize. Karl Lagerfeld took notice and hired him to work at Fendi soon after. “That collection had a lot of leather, and they were looking for someone to design fur and leather,” recalls Vaccarello. “So right away, in September, I was in Rome, working for Fendi. I love Rome, but I was a little bored. Karl did everything, and I did not really see how there was any room for advancement.” After two years, Vaccarello moved to Paris with Arnaud Michaux, a fellow designer and his longtime partner, to launch his own label, “even though everyone told me not to,” he says. “This was after the financial crisis of 2008, and people thought that no one would be interested, but little by little it worked.”

Spring 2018 “For me, this represents the extravagance of Yves Saint Laurent. It’s an homage to a kind of opulence and exaggeration of glamour, with this volume that explodes in feathers.”

From a studio in the Marais, Vaccarello quickly built his reputation for strong, sexy designs, picking up the endorsement of fashion plates like Lou Doillon and models like Anja Rubik. In 2011, he was given the ANDAM Fashion Award, the top French design accolade, which came with an endowment of €200,000. For the 2012 Met Gala, he caused a sensation with a stunning white satin dress he designed for Rubik, slashed to reveal her hip bone.

In 2015, Vaccarello was named the creative director of Versus Versace. He received the call from Saint Laurent after only a year on the job. So, how did that happen? “No idea,” he replies, laughing. “I was happy where I was, doing my thing. I was called to meet Monsieur Pinault and Francesca Bellettini because they were looking for someone for Saint Laurent, which has always seemed, to me, the absolute holy grail. I always thought that it would take years to be able to be the designer of a house like Saint Laurent, but it didn’t. I started on May 1, 2016.”

Fall 2022 “I wanted to take the codes of the bourgeoisie but twist them for today, with exaggerated coats with big shoulders and skirts that were slit but very austere.”

One period of Yves Saint Laurent’s career that has long interested Vaccarello, surprisingly enough, is the 1990s. “During the ’90s, he was out of step with the times,” says Vaccarello. “That was when I was growing up, so I didn’t know the Saint Laurent of the ’60s or ’70s or ’80s. I knew an Yves Saint Laurent who was not really talked about, a designer who was not of interest to the youth of my time. In those years, he was repeating what he had done before, with women who were very elegant, dressed from head to toe, completely perfect. Today I find that moving, to see that he did not give in to the trends of his time, that he continued to do what he knew.”

Fall 2019 “Betty Catroux told me this story about the socialite Nan Kempner, who was not being allowed to go into a restaurant in a pantsuit, so she just took off her pants and went in with a short jacket. This is that idea: a tailored jacket that becomes a minidress.

Vaccarello staged his first outing for Saint Laurent, the spring 2017 collection, on the grounds of a former monastery on the Rue de Bellechasse that is now the corporate headquarters for the brand. Both the massive building and the bold presentation signaled his ambitions. But it was the following year that Vaccarello consecrated his vision, with a show on a dramatic runway positioned at the base of the Eiffel Tower. It was a powerful way of underscoring the Parisian-ness of the brand; since then his shows on the Champ de Mars have been some of the most spectacular fashion productions of recent years. “I was a little surprised that no one had ever shown underneath the Eiffel Tower,” the designer continues. “And I felt that Saint Laurent is part of the cultural heritage of France, that it is as important as the Eiffel Tower. For me, Saint Laurent is the Eiffel Tower.”

Fall 2020 “I consider this a turning point in my career at Saint Laurent: mixing the strict tailoring and colors of Yves Saint Laurent with latex that could have come from the sex shops of Pigalle. It was a blend of prostitution and the bourgeois. It was a little strange because it was made for these girls who were pretty tough, and it was, like, two weeks before Covid.”

The designer has also brought along an eclectic group of friends and muses. Saint Laurent aficionados include Charlotte Gainsbourg, Béatrice Dalle, Hailey Bieber, Zoë Kravitz, and her dad, Lenny Kravitz, along with others who have long been important to the house, notably Betty Catroux and Catherine Deneuve. “There were always these little groups, families, who were close to Yves,” the designer explains. “I am an only child, but I have always been surrounded by family, and I felt that it was important to bring that same sense of family to Saint Laurent. They thought I was a little crazy at first because I naturally gravitated toward people who did not have a million followers on Instagram or any of that. They are real people with real personalities that have something to say. They all have some element of Saint Laurent that is important for my creativity and for me to feel like I am supported.”

Spring 2022 “These are the flowers and the draping that Yves loved, but in jersey—my interpretation of his shows; very haute couture, except these are very close to the body and very sporty.”

Vaccarello’s work for the brand regularly shows up on the red carpet: Angelina Jolie, Selena Gomez, Zoe Saldaña, Elle Fanning, Emma Corrin, Rami Malek, Scarlett Johansson, Chloë Sevigny, and Nicole Kidman have all worn his designs. His latest advertising campaign features a tough, chic, leather-clad Gwyneth Paltrow. Considering the starry world revolving around the designer, it is not surprising that his afterparties have become a scene. Held at his headquarters on the Rue de l’Université, often with legendary DJ’s like Honey Dijon, they draw a huge crowd of onlookers and paparazzi, a barrage of flashbulbs filling the sleepy streets of the Left Bank.

Vaccarello, however, has his own view about fashion’s obsession with the famous. “I hate when designers throw a lot of money at celebrities who have no connection with the house,” he says. “That is nothing more than product placement, and it’s annoying. It also kills fashion because it flattens everything out. For me, to dress a celebrity, I need to know that person, to like what they do and what they give off.”

Spring 2025 “This was a version of Yves’s own look—the suit, the dress shirt, the tie, the sunglasses—but worn by a woman. It was as though there were an army of Yves Saint Laurents on the runway.”

The designer has long been passionate about cinema and has moved into the world of film production. In 2023, a new division, Saint Laurent Productions, coproduced a short film by Pedro Almodóvar: Strange Way of Life, a queer Western starring Ethan Hawke, Pedro Pascal, and Manu Rios. “I have loved cinema since I was a child,” Vaccarello explains of this move. “I was in Brussels, a little isolated, and film was a way for me to escape. It was also a way for me to think about how to tell stories as a designer.” He points out that Saint Laurent has previous connections to cinema, having dressed, for example, Catherine Deneuve for Belle de Jour. “So, six years ago, we started making videos with people like Bret Easton Ellis and Wong Kar-wai. And I thought, Why not go further?”

The experiment has indeed gone far. Last year, at the Cannes Film Festival, Saint Laurent Productions was a force behind three films: David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds; Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope; and Jacques Audiard’s Emilia Pérez, which became a huge critical and commercial success, nominated for 13 Academy Awards.

Spring 2017 “My first collection for Saint Laurent was an interpretation of the couture of Yves Saint Laurent, but for today. There are oversize sleeves, but a little off-kilter, and there is this mix of lace and a very short skirt—my take on the Iris dress by Yves.”

Last year, Vaccarello also expanded Saint Laurent’s focus by opening Babylone, a bookstore and gallery on the Rue de Grenelle. It carries first-edition books and new tomes on photography and fashion, and hosts photography exhibitions such as a recent show of vintage prints by Antonio Lopez (including high-energy images of Pat Cleveland, Grace Jones, and Paloma Picasso). “That, too, is about connecting Saint Laurent to culture,” Vaccarello explains. “We now have cinema, and we needed literature and exhibitions. I have been very lucky to be able to transform a boutique into something that is not super commercial. But I feel like that is the beauty of this house and the collaboration with Francesca Bellettini—to allow me to open up to different means of expression.”

Not surprisingly, Bellettini, one of the rare female chief executives in fashion, was promoted last fall to overseeing the development of all the fashion labels at Saint Laurent’s parent company, Kering. As for his future, Vaccarello has every intention of continuing on the path he has set at Saint Laurent. “None of this is the result of great philosophical reflections,” he says. “They are all ideas that are spontaneous and intuitive. I work a lot by intuition. When someone asks, ‘Where will you be in two years?’ I don’t know. It is just seeing how things evolve, opportunities that present themselves, encounters that are made. That is what gives life its magic.”

Fall 2018 “This is about Yves’s passion for flowers. It was part of a finale with about 25 dresses, all embroidered with different flowers, as though they were parts of a bouquet.”

Hair for Mica Argañaraz and Anja Rubik by Louis Ghewy for Bumble and Bumble at MA+Talent; makeup for Argañaraz by Karin Westerlund for Glossier at Streeters; makeup for Rubik by Louise Rouger at Streeters; manicures for Argañaraz and Rubik by Chloé Nguyên. Models: Mica Argañaraz at DNA Model Management; Anja Rubik at SAFE Mgmt. Casting by Ashley Brokaw Casting.

Anthony Vaccarello: Hair by Yuji Okuda at Artlist Paris; Skin by Satoko Watanabe for YSL beauty at Artlist Paris.

Produced by 138 Productions; Producer: Simon Malivindi; Production Coordinator: Davia Cardi; Unit Manager: Benjamin Vasseur; lighting director: Romain Dubus; Photo Assistants: Corenthin Thevenet, Yves Mourtada; Digital Technician: Henri Coutant; retouching: Stéphane Virlogeux; Fashion Assistants: Louise Victor, Fernando Damanesco, Claudia Chick; Production Assistants: Thomas Deslandes, Dejan Trajkov, Nael Vilain, Hugo Meunier; Hair Assistant: Nao Sato; Makeup Assistant to Westerlund: Juri Yamanaka, Makeup Assistant to Rouger: Karla Garza.