GIF: Louis Vuitton, s/s 2015 - Getty
We were in a ship: ‘an incubator for creative minds', said the talking heads on giant screens like sci-fi space travellers before the show began. The ship was actually the just-built, awe-inspiring Foundation rising out of the woodland in the Bois de Boulogne like an avant-garde cruise ship, made from 3600 glass panels and 15,000 tonnes of steel. We sat in the ship’s hull, all blacked out but for spacecraft-like beams of light. ‘Today, on 1 October, the LV house wants to explore the ability to travel to any part of the universe without moving,’ said the heads, in unison.
Cue the music, The Sound Of Silence, and we were transported back to 1965 with Simon and Garfunkel – and the clothes. A taut white minidress with a high, frilled collar made in woven raffia stepped out in shiny black ankle boots. It was a clear and simple statement that Nicholas Ghesquière was picking up from where he left off last season in his first show for the storied house – the development of LV’s modern classic silhouette. A neat black riding jacket followed, then a stripy lacquered leather A-line miniskirt with knee-high boots, the heels corrugated like cogs.
This being Nicholas Ghesquière, it didn’t take long before the retro attitude evaporated into clothes that felt deeply of this moment. A pair of flat-fronted jeans, slightly flared and cropped above the ankle with a pretty white blouse, looked easy and chic – equally so, a double-breasted navy coat with bold white buttons and short, swishy, white jersey dresses that looked modern, pretty and easy. Mac-jackets lined in white fur and soft Bermuda shorts followed. Jeans came printed with retro home appliances – hairdryer, tape recorder, phone, car, bottles of nail polish (stylish fragments of an era collected by the space travellers?). Then he ramped up the colour and embellishment – minidresses encrusted in multi-patterned sequins, velvet hipster-pants worn with zip-up blouses or quilted cropped jackets. There was so much to take in – almost every outfit came with a different bag and boots in every LV-monogram permutation imaginable. And yet it was impeccably focused. Not to mention commercially strategic, with every look geared to sell.
This show season, we have seen a zillion copies of Louis Vuitton – Ghesquière’s first show for the house shown back in March. This collection is destined to wield the same influence, if not more.
