Long in the making, the offensive launched this summer by CEO Cédric Charbit to sideline artistic director Anthony Vaccarello is rocking Kering's flagship brand and is beginning to worry the group's top management.
No fewer than 300 VIPs crowded around the tables at The Pool, the vast restaurant occupying the ground floor of New York's Seagram Building, on 10 September 2026 for the Kering Foundation's annual gala. In addition to Chairman François-Henri Pinault, CEO Luca de Meo and the former head of Kering Americas, Laurent Claquin, several brand heads had reserved tables to take part in the auction.
That was notably the case for Saint Laurent's chief executive, Cédric Charbit, who is showing an increasingly marked interest in managing the wide circle of "people" (celebrities) who orbit Kering's crown jewel, a prerogative traditionally reserved for the houses' artistic directors. His activism on this front is helped by the recent promotion of one of his close allies, former Balenciaga VIP chief Johan Fleury, to the post of group celebrity coordinator.
Limbo
On the sidelines of the foundation's auction, and then of the Paris Hilton DJ set that closed the evening, the future of Saint Laurent was at the centre of guests' private conversations. Since Glitz revealed the tensions that have built up between Cédric Charbit and artistic director Anthony Vaccarello, our reporting has been widely picked up, notably by Puck as well as by numerous blogs and Instagram accounts. This media buzz contrasts with the situation inside the house: although the ten-year contract binding Anthony Vaccarello to Saint Laurent expires in less than a year, neither Kering's legal department nor Saint Laurent's has taken the slightest step to notify him of its termination or its renewal. To date, the artistic director is busy finalising the looks he will present on 29 September at the Spring 2027 Fashion Week.
The persistence of this hiatus and the growing uncertainty over what comes next are starting to worry the group's executives, who are anxious not to relive the experience of Alessandro Michele's departure from Gucci, which left Kering without a plan B in autumn 2022. Yet without an agreement with Anthony Vaccarello, there is nothing to be done beyond making vague promises and signing non-disclosure agreements with available designers such as Chemena Kamali (see edition of 30/07/26) or Dario Vitale, ousted from Versace by the Prada family. And the longer this drags on, the more likely investors and financial analysts are to demand answers from the group's management, which is due to report third-quarter results on 22 October and whose share price has been sliding steadily since the start of the month.
Gamble
In an attempt to regain the initiative in a situation that is spiralling, Saint Laurent's management has for the past few days been circulating a fairy-tale scenario: the return of Hedi Slimane to the house he made famous over seven years, first as artistic director of YSL Homme (1997-2000), then as creative director of the entire house (2012-2016). Cédric Charbit was head of Saint Laurent products during the designer's final years and has always been open about his admiration for him.
But that "devotion" is not necessarily shared by Kering's controlling family or by the group's CEO, which makes the bombshell of a Slimane return to Saint Laurent highly improbable. In the meantime, a certain nervousness is spreading through the upper floors of Kering's headquarters on rue de Sèvres (Paris 7th arrondissement), where there is concern about having to get through another two weeks without being able to make any announcement at all.