Inside a Black Hole

So much of what has been written about Nicolas Ghesquière’s second (well third if you count that stupendously good resort show…) collection for Louis Vuitton, has centered around this.

The Fondation Louis Vuitton in the Bois de Boulogne designed by Frank Gehry.  (Random unconnected tidbit: this posh area is known for being a place to solicit prostitutes – on my way out from the show, I saw about ten of them, getting ready to lure in punters).  The show venue loomed large for many reviewers and journalists because of its scale.  You could hear that now-familiar gong sound as you approached this giant glass and steel iceberg, floating in surreal fashion above a still waterfall.  And just as you thought you were going to be engulfed in a show space filled with light and airiness, you were plunged into darkness, spotlit as though we were in a space ship.  And there I go again, backgrounding the show with overly long descriptions about the venue.  It’s all too easy to delve deep.  Especially as the show begins with projected floating heads akin to a United Colours of Benetton ad speaking ominously in unison.  “A beginning is a very delicate time…Day zero in the heart of the project, code-named GEHRY014…A ship surrounded by a gigantic woodland, a ship made up of 3,600 glass panels and 15,000 tons of steel, a ship that serves as an incubator and ignites our fellow creative minds…Oh, yes, I forgot to tell you, today, October 1, the LV house wants to explore the ability to travel to any part of the universe without moving.  The journey starts here.”  That time and space travel narrative inside this awe-dropping structure is enough to throw you off kilter.  

However, a few months down the line, into a new year as I begin to look forward to all the goodies that a new season brings – no not pre-fall or further down the line, fall winter 2015-6 but spring summer 2015  the things that I have really taken away from this impressive sophomore collection by Ghesquière are the list of particulars.  That print!  Lipsticks, macho cars and the Petite Malle box bag rendered into a bit of 80s-style graffitied kitsch.  I’ve already made embarrassing enquiries to the folks at the Louis Vuitton Maison flagship on Old Bond Street – “When do the pieces with the lippie print come in?”  Those shoes!  Stitched up sheeny shiny eelskin or patchwork denim boots topped off with a Pepto Bismol pink heel in the shape of the quatrefoil LV flower.  The jeans!  Who knew I’d be adding exclamation marks to jeans – but I have because they’re vaguely high waisted, vaguely boot leg and slightly flared and rendered in unapologetic velour.  I say unapologetic because you would think that could be a horrid combination but I emerged thinking they were the sort of jeans that I could really “live” in (as is the way that most people describe their denim thingies).  Those flippy dresses!  Boho broderie anglaise Edwardian slash 70s tinged dresses are turned on their head and injected with thinly cut patent leather and perforated leather woven and stitched in.  The complex construction of this 21st century ribbondry can really only be appreciated up close.  Same goes for the Willliam Morris prints, puckered into relief leather vests and quilted velvet suits.

You might say it’s sum of pretty parts, rather than a whole statement.  Which I think is deliberate on Ghesquière’s part.  Unlike the size of the venue we were sitting inside, Ghesquière isn’t out to create a gigantic seasonal seismic shift.  Been there, done that, got the lawsuit.  But instead, it’s a tinkering and tweaking of the familiar and the unfamiliar that seduces.  Much like what Michel Gaubert did to Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘The Sound of Silence’.  Different without alienating.  Special without shocking.   Those attributes fit the bill at a house like Louis Vuitton, when you’re dealing with brand values of time, travel and legacy.  

And as a sidenote, is it just me as well or is Ghesquière that extra bit smiley these days?  Not that I’ve closely measured the degree of smiliness throughout his career (that would be creepy…).  At the end of the show, in interviews and when picking up his two gongs at the British Fashion Awards back in December, his enthusiasm and contentment just seems to show in spades.  Smile on, I say…