Jerry Hall and Rami Malek were among the celebrities watching Saint Laurent go for gold at Paris Fashion Week.
They were joined by the likes of Hall’s daughter Georgia May Jagger, Zoe Kravitz, Eddie Redmayne and more as Anthony Vaccarello unveiled his spring/summer 2027 collection for the French fashion house.
And there was no mistaking the theme.
Gold biker jackets, bomber jackets, safari jackets and trench coats alongside metallic pencil skirts and dresses came one after another, as Vaccarello dipped some of Saint Laurent’s most recognisable designs in the precious metal.
The show took place beneath an enormous chandelier, opposite the glittering Eiffel Tower, on a set inspired by the ballroom of the Hotel InterContinental, where Yves Saint Laurent used to stage his couture shows.
The first model appeared almost camouflaged against the opulent surroundings in a liquid-gold utility jacket and matching pencil skirt, with a sheer yellow-gold scarf trailing behind her.
More gold quickly followed.
Pencil skirts have been a recurring silhouette on the SS 2027 runways, but at Saint Laurent they came with the house’s familiar proportions of broad shoulders, a sharply defined waist and a long, lean silhouette.
Jackets were sometimes cinched tightly around the middle and elsewhere left open and louche, while long red, black and ochre scarves were wrapped around models’ necks and left to stream behind them.
Gold has a long history at Saint Laurent.
“I love gold, it’s a magical colour,” Yves Saint Laurent once said. “When reflecting a woman, it’s the colour of the sun.”
Vaccarello appeared determined to see just how far that affection could go.
Importantly, no two golds looked quite the same, ranging from pale champagne and burnished bronze to richer, almost antique shades.
The variety came partly from the fabrics. Lamé, organza, lace, brocade, jacquard and metallic cotton were joined by latex coated in gold leaf, meaning each outfit caught the light slightly differently.
Ultra-cropped tops worn with cigarette trousers, pencil skirts and jackets, exposing a band of stomach, was a silhouette reminiscent of the early 2000s.
But beneath all the shine was a tour through Saint Laurent’s history.
Vaccarello’s autumn/winter 2026 collection marked the 60th anniversary of Le Smoking, the black tuxedo Yves Saint Laurent introduced for women in 1966 and which became one of the house’s defining designs.
That show concentrated on the famous suit. This season, Vaccarello widened his gaze to the rest of the Saint Laurent wardrobe.
Safari jackets, trenches, blouses and wrap skirts associated with the house’s founder were all gilded, alongside the strong-shouldered coats and short, precise suits that have become signatures of Vaccarello’s own tenure.
The safari jacket was particularly prominent.
Saint Laurent famously elevated the utilitarian style into high fashion in the late Sixties, and here its pockets, belted waist and military proportions remained intact – only khaki had been swapped for gleaming gold.
Some were oversized and tightly belted, others came with huge shoulders and pencil skirts, turning a garment designed for practicality into something spectacularly impractical.
There were echoes of Le Smoking too.
Short, square jackets with prominent buttons appeared alongside exaggerated double-breasted styles, borrowing the proportions of traditional menswear while emphasising the body underneath.
Saint Laurent’s 1966 tuxedo was provocative because it put women into a garment then closely associated with men’s eveningwear. Six decades later, Vaccarello was still playing with the same tension between masculine tailoring and overt femininity.
It wasn’t all tailored jackets, however, gold camisoles were tucked into knee-length pencil skirts, while fitted halterneck and square-neck dresses looked not unlike the business-casual dresses of the early 2010s – albeit covered in metallic appliqué.
Sequins, embroidery, appliqué and fur took over the eveningwear, with some dresses glittering like jewellery beneath the enormous chandelier.
Monumental filigree earrings hung from models’ ears, while shoes were constructed from gilded metallic chains and balanced on twisting snake heels.
It was decadence piled on decadence – and then, suddenly, the gold disappeared.
A black jacket and pencil skirt emerged in almost exactly the same lean proportions as the gilded looks that had preceded it.
After so much glitz, plain black felt surprisingly dramatic.
The tightly controlled all-black pencil skirts began to give way to more skin, more volume and considerably more fabric.
Black tulle swelled around models’ bodies and trailed behind them, until the final looks seemed almost to engulf their wearers.
One minidress came surrounded by masses of sheer fabric, with a huge train sweeping along the runway and another swathe wrapped across the front like a scarf caught in the wind. The dresses were a nimbus of black organza – while the preceding looks proved Vaccarello has been part of Saint Laurent’s golden age.
After a collection built around gold’s ability to catch and reflect light, black swallowed it.
As the model’s took their final walk, Charlotte Gainsbourg, the singer and actor daughter of Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg, appeared in a black Saint Laurent suit to perform a song written for the show, You’re So Much Yves Saint Laurent.
Vaccarello emerged afterwards and walked almost the entire runway, embracing Gainsbourg before going over to greet his young son on the front row.
It was an emotional ending to a collection whose accompanying notes had already struck a reflective tone.
“A light shines all the more brightly because we know it cannot be held,” Vaccarello wrote. “What passes sometimes leaves more light than what remains.”
Vaccarello has been at the helm of Saint Laurent since 2016, spending the past decade reworking the founder’s signatures through his own fondness for broad shoulders and unapologetically sexy clothes.
Last season, the 60th anniversary of Le Smoking gave him one famous piece of Saint Laurent history to revisit.
For spring, he seemed to open the entire archive.
