All that glitters is not gold, as the old saying goes. But if there was a man to prove that wrong, it’s Anthony Vaccarello.

On 9 October, the news that had the rumour mill churning so fast it basically broke was finally confirmed: following a 10-year stint, the Belgian designer has stepped down from the helm of Saint Laurent, with the leader of its next chapter to be announced in due course (although it’s hardly a secret that the name being whispered on the streets is Chemena Kamali).

The announcement comes shortly after Vaccarello presented a Paris Fashion Week spectacle of operatic splendour – a parade of 49 golden looks presented in the shadow of a gleaming Eiffel Tower. The procession then faded to black for the final 10.

The only thing that shone brighter than the gold-laminated leathers, damasks and bouclés was the galaxy’s worth of stars that watched from the front row: Zoë Kravitz, Kate Moss, Rosé, Honey Dijon… the list goes on.

While Saint Laurent has long been synonymous with celebrity, over the past decade, Vaccarello took that reputation stratospheric, bringing talents from the worlds of music, fashion, sport and film into his orbit. It’s in the latter realm – fitting given the cinematic precision of his vision – that his influence has been most significant, with the designer setting a new benchmark for a severe, vampy riff on red-carpet dressing that has had a ripple effect across the industry. The designer’s mark on Hollywood was cemented in 2023 when he donned his producer cap, overseeing the establishment of Saint Laurent Productions, an Oscar-winning film studio.

Below, we recap some of the starriest moments from Anthony Vaccarello’s stellar tenure at Saint Laurent.