“A light shines all the more brightly because we know it cannot be held,” says Anthony Vaccarello, the designer behind Saint Laurent’s Summer 2027 collection. For Paris Fashion Week, the maison lined the sky with gilded chandeliers: the night pierced with gold, the audience bathed in sparkles. “What passes sometimes leaves more light than what remains.” This seems true enough of Vaccarello's creation, presented in a procession of golden models, their glimmer almost hanging in the air after they've gone.

The collection, a mythic reimagining, ushers in a golden age of literal proportions, as Vaccarello leans into the decadence and vitality of gold—a color, a material, a state of mind. From afar, the silhouettes blend together, details difficult to distinguish from the glow that permeates the lot. But up close, the maison’s most iconic archetypes remain: sahariennes, trenches, blouses, and wrap skirts of Monsieur Saint Laurent’s era, alongside Vaccarello’s new house classics
such as strong-shouldered coats, voluminous blousons, and short, precise suits edged with swathes of fur.

No two pieces or shades are quite alike. Each look brings a new gold, its reflective quality brought to life through fabric: lame, organza, guipure lace, mousseline, brocade, jacquard, metallic cotton, latex coated in gold leaf. The accessories follow suit with equal opulence and glow: monumental, jeweled filigree earrings, or shoes constructed from gilded metallic chains, resting on twisting snake heels.

Rooted in both transience and tradition, the collection draws beauty from each. And behind the stage, the Eiffel Tower glimmers as a physical embodiment of both, its structure lit to sparkle at nightfall, briefly, on the hour. At the show’s end, the gold gives way to black—a velvet suit with jewel buttons, a trio of nimbus-cloud black evening dresses. As if to absorb the light the gold reflected before letting it go.

“I love gold, it’s a magical color,” Monsieur Saint Laurent once said. “When reflecting a woman, it’s the color of the sun.”