Vaccarello's Exit Completes Kering's 4-Brand Leadership Reset and Centralizes Decision Rights at a €2.6 Billion House.

On October 9, 2026, Kering confirmed that Anthony Vaccarello is leaving Saint Laurent after ten years as creative director. His last show was on September 29 at the Trocadéro, ten years and two days after his debut. Kering gave no reason for the exit and said the house will announce its new creative leadership "soon." CEO Luca de Meo, who came to Kering from the car industry in September 2025, thanked Vaccarello "as we embark on a new chapter in its history."

The numbers explain why this is a big decision. Saint Laurent's revenue was €974 million before Vaccarello arrived. It peaked at €3.3 billion in 2022. Then it fell three years in a row, to €2.64 billion in 2025, and the operating margin dropped from about 31 percent to 20 percent.

But the structural point is how much Vaccarello controlled. He did not just design clothes. The collections were branded "Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello." He built Saint Laurent Rive Droite, a store mixing art, music, and design. In 2023 he launched Saint Laurent Productions, the first film company run by a fashion house, which produced Emilia Pérez. One person owned the clothes, the stores, the culture, and the movies.

This matters because it determines who decides. When a designer's name is on the label and he runs the film arm, the CEO has to negotiate with him. In April 2026, de Meo set his own targets for Saint Laurent by 2030: double men's ready-to-wear sales, triple jewelry sales, and reach at least €500 million in entry-level products. Those are category targets, the kind a business leader sets, not a designer.

The timing also fits a pattern. Gucci, Balenciaga, and Bottega Veneta all changed creative directors in 2025. Saint Laurent was the last major Kering brand to do so. Vaccarello was reportedly reluctant to leave. In 13 months, de Meo has replaced the creative leadership across the entire group.

The name mentioned most often as successor is Chemena Kamali, now creative director at Chloé. She was Saint Laurent's women's design director under Vaccarello from 2016 to 2023. Nothing is confirmed. But if it is her, Kering would be hiring someone who knows the house from the inside but who never held the full empire Vaccarello built.

What I would look for: whether the new creative director's name goes on the label the way Vaccarello's did. Whether Saint Laurent Productions keeps running under the designer or moves under the business side. Whether de Meo's 2030 category targets appear in the new designer's first collections.

The bigger lesson is that replacing a creative director is also a way to reset who holds power. A designer who built a decade of growth earns authority far beyond the runway. A new designer starts with none of it, and the CEO gets to decide how much to give back.