During his decade at the house, Vaccarello’s conduct both reflected and amplified some of the patterns first sketched by the house’s great founding designer. Where Yves Saint Laurent had designed the costumes for Catherine Deneuve in Belle de Jour, Vaccarello conceived the house’s launch of Saint Laurent Productions in 2023: its output has included double Oscar winner Emilia Pérez and Paolo Sorrentino’s Parthenope. And just as Saint Laurent both supported and was supported by a close coterie of women including Deneuve, Loulou de La Falaise and Betty Catroux, Vaccarello’s 21st-century generation of Saint Laurent women includes Anja Rubik and Charlotte Gainsbourg.
In 2018, Vaccarello told Vogue: “Everyone has a vision of what they think Saint Laurent should be, and that’s something I knew when I started. I knew that whatever I did, some people would love it and some would hate it. It was the same with Hedi, and Stefano [Pilati] before him. I’m fine with it. In fact, I kind of love it.”
That observation also applied to Tom Ford, who had designed Yves Saint Laurent’s ready-to-wear between 2000 and 2004, following Gucci Group’s acquisition of the house in 1999 for a reported $1 billion. By the time Vaccarello arrived, Yves Saint Laurent had been under the operational control of CEO Francesca Bellettini since 2013 — the same year Gucci Group, later PPR, was rechristened Kering.
Following Yves Saint Laurent’s peak financial performance in 2022, it endured three years of declining revenues, to €2.64 billion in 2025, and a contraction in operating margin from 30.9% to 20%. Much of this, however, was attributable to both the wider decline across luxury and to YSL’s aggressive 2023 repositioning away from wholesale. Vaccarello’s collections, meanwhile, became ever more uncompromisingly distinct in their interpretation of Yves Saint Laurent’s revolutionary template.
