Anthony Vaccarello, who will receive the CFDA’s award for international designer of the year at next Monday’s gala, became a global name when he joined Saint Laurent in 2016. His triumphant exit after a decade was the talk of the spring 2027 season.
But the Belgian designer didn’t go directly from Brussels to 5 Avenue Marceau. In 2006, Vaccarello won the Hyères Prize with his graduate collection and then went to work with Karl Lagerfeld at Fendi. Three years later, living in Paris, he launched his namesake project on a bijou scale; Maria Luisa Poumaillou displayed his five looks in the windows of her Maria Luisa boutique. Vogue Runway started covering Vaccarello’s collections for fall 2011. “It’s always black, always sexy,” he said at the time, and he rarely strayed from that winning formula. Thigh-high slits, cutouts, and teasingly erotic asymmetries were all part of the package, typically accessorized with razor-thin stilettos.
Vote for your favorite Vaccarello look ahead of his big CFDA moment.
