The Week Fashion Went for Gold

Anthony Vaccarello closed his decade at Saint Laurent with a show staged beneath the Eiffel Tower that made gold the entire vocabulary of the collection. Lamé, brocade, lace and even latex brushed with gold leaf ran through sparkling skirts, burnished animal prints and satin tailoring, before the finale pivoted into stark black looks that read as an emotional full stop. Charlotte Gainsbourg sang during the final walk.

On October 9 the house officially confirmed Vaccarello's departure after ten years, which turned a strong season-closer into a fashion-historical moment overnight. The retrospectives followed within hours: W magazine posted a 17-slide carousel of stars in his Saint Laurent, and ELLE and Vogue ran their own tributes.

For shopping, the takeaway is metallic evening dressing worn with real confidence: gold lamé separates, pleated gold clutches, mid-heel gold sandals. Not subtle shimmer — the full Vaccarello register, worn after dark with black tailoring to ground it.

Every fall 2026 trend roundup lands on the same conclusion: the boot is the purchase of the season, and the knee-high is its flagship silhouette. The directions are remarkably consistent — polished leather riding boots, slouchy suede knee-highs, equestrian-inspired ankle boots, and burgundy pairs that fold the season's colour story into footwear.

On the Paris streets the formula was already set: knee-high leather boots under midi trench hemlines, over slim trousers, or with pleated midi skirts. The styling gestures are as specific as the boots themselves — one jean leg tucked in and the other left out, sweaters tied at the hips to shift the proportion above the boot line, tall boots with stirrup pants for colder weather.

What makes this a buy-now trend rather than a runway abstraction is inventory: the exact silhouettes the street style set is wearing are in stock at accessible prices right now, from the classic black leather riding boot to the softer slouchy suede version.

Jewelry has decisively left the quiet-luxury era. The fall 2026 story is sculptural gold with an '80s accent: oversized domed cuffs, bombé rings and earrings with rounded architectural volume, chunky molten hoops, brooches worn on blazer lapels, sweater sleeves, even scarves. The through-line is dimension — smooth, tactile, three-dimensional metal that reads as wearable art.

The runways seeded this months ago, with statement gold at Saint Laurent and Givenchy widely cited in the fall jewelry roundups. But it is the styling that made it a street trend: chunky gold hardware treated as a standalone design element against neutral wools and cashmeres, a single statement cuff over a knit sleeve.

Bombé is the insider word of the season — the domed, bulky silhouette giving earrings, rings and pendants their volume. The current rule is one bold piece against simple clothes, not a matched set; the matchy-matchy sets and ultra-dainty pieces of recent years are explicitly out.

Black has been quietly demoted. The neutral of fall 2026 is chocolate brown — espresso, cocoa, tobacco — with burgundy, merlot and oxblood as its co-star, supported by moss green, caramel and cream. The palette walked the Paris sidewalks as tonal, head-to-toe dressing: deep espresso trench coats, oxblood midi skirts, layered terracotta and olive.

One widely repeated styling note is that brown and black worn together is now among the most modern combinations in the book, not a faux pas. The colour story is commercial, not just editorial: chocolate, tobacco, mocha and burgundy suede bags are the season's defining accessory, and a muted brown 'coco' denim is being positioned as the fall replacement for black trousers.

There are hotter accents for those who want them — hot red, pink, electric blue — but the core buy is the rich neutral: a chocolate knit, an oxblood bag, a burgundy boot. Pieces that will outlast the season because the palette itself is built on wearability.

This season the coat stopped being the thing you throw over the outfit and became the outfit. The dominant textures are plush and tactile: faux fur, shearling, Mongolian lambswool trim, shaggy finishes, oversized collars. On the Paris streets the long leather trench was the uniform — over sheer dresses, gauzy skirts, even sporty shorts.

Two styling details elevated coats from purchase to trend. First, the belt moved off the trousers and onto the coat itself: belting a trench or wool coat at the waist is the season's simplest tailoring trick. Second, the faux-fur jacket crossed from statement piece to street staple — influencer Claire Most's October 9 post in Charlotte Simone's cropped faux-leather and lambswool-trim Maxine is exactly the silhouette the street style photographers were already shooting.

The buy-it-now logic is simple: one great coat does more work this season than any other single purchase, and the current drops make the trend accessible at every price.

Heritage checks are having a genuine mainstream moment, and it arrived with a royal seal. On October 9 the Princess of Wales stepped out in Belfast in a deep-green tartan pleated skirt with a white ruffle blouse, black coat and a Mulberry handbag — the kind of widely photographed appearance that moves product within days.

The fashion-week version is looser and more playful. Paris street style leaned into checkered accessories — a checkered bag here, plaid tied around the waist over burgundy there — and tartan, houndstooth and plaid are all over the autumn reports across tailoring, coats, skirts and trousers.

The styling note that keeps recurring: checks work best mixed, not matched. A plaid skirt with a plain knit, a check blazer over dark denim, one heritage piece per outfit. It is the most wearable print of the season precisely because it behaves like a neutral.