suzy menkes
Suzy Menkes
international vogue editor

09

Does Louis Vuitton really have so much power that its designer thinks of the drowned city of Atlantis – and then, on show day, rain of Biblical proportions falls on Paris? Saving us from the downpour, the show space was made up of tent-like sculpted pods at the back of the LV art foundation in the Bois de Boulogne.

Inside, artistic effects were on the agenda, with French artist Justin Morin creating a neanderthal landscape of mirrored rocks for the models to navigate.

 

PARIS, FRANCE - MARCH 09:  Models walk the runway during the Louis Vuitton show as part of the Paris Fashion Week Womenswear Fall/Winter 2016/2017 on March 9, 2016 in Paris, France.  (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

Louis Vuitton, Fall/Winter 2016-17

 

For more distraction, there was a posse of young celebrities who each – from Alicia Vikander and Selma Blair to Léa Seydoux and Jennifer Connelly – posed with Creative Director Nicolas Ghesquière in their short skirts, taut tops, and preferably carrying an LV handbag. In the centre of the line-up, Catherine Deneuve, in a tailored blue coat, offered some reality chic.

On the very last day of shows from New York, through London, to Milan and Paris, the fashion crowd was closing in on the final scene. And if it had not been for the crazy razzmatazz surrounding the Louis Vuitton show, this might have been an exceptional summing up of dressing for today.

Take away all the diversions – from the undulating runway to the bright spotlights – and there were some strong, modern clothes in the designer’s futurism-meets-sport spirit.

“At Louis Vuitton, my remit is to create new classics and to reflect on them – to decide how much a shirt is unbuttoned, the way women dress today – but I didn’t invent anything,” the designer said.

Nicolas was honest about his collection with its surprising combinations of hybrid outfits, such as a short, taut jacket with trousers between sweatpants and jogging bottoms. But the designer may have underplayed his creative skills. For example, there were bodysuits with a skeletal patterning that turned out to be knitwear – the cashmere treated the same way as synthetic sports clothes. Wake-up moments included a bustier outside the bodice, its toughness linked to thick, laced-up walking boots.

The designer said that he wanted to reflect digital methods in a luxury fabric, and knowing that references to sport are now part of mainstream fashion, he linked high tech with classic cashmere.

Since there were no official show notes (at least before I wrote this review), I had to make my own conclusions: the rather familiar chain and leather strap pattern (hello Hermes!) on the opening dresses seemed less innovative than later flower prints, created so that they poured diagonally across a silken pinafore over a plain, black sweater splashed with colour. The sophistication of the collection included slits creating tiny whispers of flesh on a tailored suit.

And the bags? They swung past: leopard-spotted box, a squishy monogram tote, leather holdalls – but they were no longer cock of the walk. Since Nicolas took over from Marc Jacobs at Vuitton almost two and a half years ago, the clothes seem more coherent with each season. A touch of history, mixed with futurism, streams through the shows. And even if this season was a deluge, it also washed in a lot of ideas, fabric treatments and styles that are relevant to women today.

 

 

ABOUT SUZY

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Vogue International Editor Suzy Menkes is the best-known fashion journalist in the world. After 25 years commenting on fashion for the International Herald Tribune (rebranded recently as The International New York Times), Suzy Menkes now writes exclusively for Vogue online, covering fashion worldwide.

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