Louis Vuitton presents its major autumn-winter show, and watch out, hold on to your suitcases: this season, Nicolas Ghesquière takes us on a stylistic journey on a station platform, where surrealism meets the bar car.
Just imagine the SNCF announcement: ‘Attention departure, train bound for Fashion Week, serving all the stops for good taste, WTF and sartorial audacity’. On the platform, a colourful crowd crowds: a yoga teacher in an asymmetric leotard, a private detective in a fluorescent trench coat, a chic camper in a designer bivouac blanket and, yes, that model over there plays the ukulele like Marilyn Monroe in ‘Some Like It Hot’. This is the magic of Vuitton: a melting pot of characters who could just as easily have stepped off the Trans-Siberian Railway as out of an Agatha Christie film.
The décor? A masterpiece of icy minimalism: a waiting room where the seats are as uncomfortable as they are elegant, with lighting that would make the neon lights in an airport terminal pale into insignificance. In the absence of announcements to warn of any delays (spoiler: there are none, it’s Vuitton, not the SNCF), Kraftwerk plays its ‘Trans Europe Express’, reminding everyone that the hype train never stops.
In terms of looks, Ghesquière mixed it all up with the energy of a traveller who’d packed his suitcase in five minutes before running to catch his train: translucent trench coats, improbable cargo shorts, New Wave jumpers that would make the 80s break out in a cold sweat, and draped dresses in the ‘I slept with the Vuitton duvet on me’ style. The accessories are not to be outdone: hat boxes, violin trunks, vintage toiletry bags… everything you need for an impromptu weekend aboard the Orient Express or a spectacular elopement on the house’s next luxury boat.
Vuitton offers us a show where imagination reigns supreme, where the rails become avenues for stylistic reflection rather than Coco Cola rails, and where, in the end, we tell ourselves that fashion is also about travel. And it doesn’t matter if you don’t understand everything the first time round: the important thing is to have your ticket (and your invitation) in your pocket.
FM