Saint Laurent Spring Summer 2027 everything, or almost everything turns into gold. Gold spreads across the collection until it becomes less a color than an atmosphere: Byzantine, pale, Renaissance, matte, burnished, Art Deco and at times almost Brutalist. What could easily have slipped into excess becomes, in Vaccarello’s hands, a modern King Mida, an exercise in highly controlled opulence.
Saint Laurent Spring Summer 2027 reminded as that gold has always belonged to the Saint Laurent vocabulary. Yves Saint Laurent himself famously described it as a magical color, associated with light and the sun. Here, Vaccarello takes that relationship further. Rather than using gold simply to embellish clothes, he allows it to transform familiar Saint Laurent archetypes: the saharienne, the trench, the blouse and wrap skirt, alongside the sharper codes he has progressively introduced into the house himself.
The strongest point of the collection is precisely this tension between richness and restraint. The surfaces may be precious, but the silhouettes remain disciplined. Metallic trenches, cropped jackets, sculpted blouses and narrow tailoring never become costume. Even when lamé, brocade, jacquard, guipure lace, organza and metallic cotton are layered into the same visual universe, the attitude remains unmistakably chic.
Vaccarello has often worked through repetition, reducing a collection to a powerful visual idea and pushing it until it becomes almost hypnotic. This time the repetition comes through color rather than silhouette. Look after look reflects and absorbs light differently, giving gold an unexpected range: sometimes soft and faded, sometimes almost liquid, elsewhere aged, textured or aggressively metallic. Against the Paris night, the effect becomes even more cinematic. Vogue
There is also something particularly contemporary about treating luxury this way. In an era in which discretion has dominated so much of fashion, Saint Laurent makes a case for visible luxury again — but without sacrificing sophistication. The clothes are unapologetically precious, yet they never feel overloaded. Vaccarello understands that the difference between glamour and excess often lies in proportion, and every element here appears deliberately calibrated.
The accessories push this idea of opulence even further. Monumental filigree earrings covered in stones frame the face almost like pieces of jewellery from another era, while the footwear becomes one of the collection’s most experimental propositions. Gilded metallic chains construct shoes around the foot, and extraordinarily high stilettos evolve into sculptural objects. Most striking are the heels shaped as twisting snakes: provocative, slightly dangerous and unmistakably Saint Laurent. Vogue also singled out the serpent-shaped heels among the show’s defining details. Vogue
They are not accessories designed to disappear beneath the clothes. They complete the character. That is why they are key for Saint Laurent Spring Summer 2027. Accessories are indeed fundamental to Vaccarello’s Saint Laurent aesthetic: a woman who can wear something spectacular without appearing overwhelmed by it and always with a secret weapon: her shoes or bags or even jewelry. Even at its most decorative, the collection never becomes precious in the fragile sense of the word. There is confidence, sexuality and an almost nonchalant toughness running underneath all that gold.
Black could have not be left out, when the light is suddenly absorbed rather than reflected, there comes the darkest of all shades. Velvet tailoring with jewel buttons and fluid evening dresses close the show, making darkness feel every bit as luxurious as what preceded it in the gold overture that is Saint Laurent Spring Summer 2027. The contrast recalls Saint Laurent’s historical fascination with the dialogue between black and gold, but Vaccarello makes it feel immediate rather than archival.
Summer 2027 ultimately proves that opulence does not have to mean excess. At Saint Laurent, gold can be extravagant and rigorous at the same time, precious without becoming decorative for decoration’s sake. Vaccarello takes one of fashion’s most obvious symbols of luxury and strips it of cliché.
Will it really be the last show by Anthony Vaccarello? We would really hope that he is not, even if at the end of the show, the designers himself gave a pair of keys (of the atelier?) to someone in the audience.