Louis Vuitton FW22 - 3 minutes read
Image: Louis Vuitton
During Paris Fashion Week earlier this month, Nicolas Ghesquière showed the Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2022 collection at the Musée d’Orsay. The artistic director of the French fashion giant dedicated the collection to “youth, in all its vibrant romance, inspirational optimism, hope for the future, and for a better world”. As seen in the clothes, the fabric is loud in terms of design, substance, and layering (or all in one).
Youthful Sentiments of Unbridled Style
HoYeon Jung, the star of ‘Squid Games‘ and a Vuitton global brand ambassador, kicked off the presentation. Jung reverted to her modeling origins after winning the Screen Actors Guild Award 2021, wearing a basic button-up pair with a flowery tie, an oversized aviator jacket, loose-fitting striped slacks, and hybrid sandal shoes.
Image: Louis Vuitton
In loafers, sneakers, and knee-high boots, the models glided and walked amongst marble statues. The open-toe idea, which Ghesquière heavily favored in his vampiric and ageless Spring/Summer 2022 Collection last October, was also included in the Fall/Winter collection. Ghesquière, who is known for creating opposing realms, certainly delivered once again for this runway presentation. Inspired by young self-expression, the designer created this ready-to-wear collection that can be mixed and matched according to moods. Guests were treated to an array of enormous clothing and casual designs, including embellished neckties, massive cardigans, boxy sweaters, wide-shouldered jackets, structured tweed pinafores, and floor-sweeping pants.
The collection oozes professional chic, a mix of conventional feminine elegance and street cool, with contemplative subtleties and surprising features. Rugby polo shirts were paired with movement-inducing mille-feuille dresses, while androgynous tailoring was met with punkish embellishments. Photographs by David Sims from the 1990s are worn and embroidered on some, evoking graphic concert t-shirts, posters in a teenager’s bedroom, and the never-ending floral fad. The design brand focuses on “the impermanence and lovely volatility of youth”, in which taste is only a personal construct. After all, the majority of our fleeting adolescent years are where character development takes place, which may have strongly affected our wardrobe choices.
The foundation of the collection is a young feeling of casual, yet precise design. Fusion notions are not uncommon in this day and age of innovation, but rather widely recognized. “I’d like people to have the impression that it’s a collection without constraints, that it’s focused on freedom of movement, ease, and utter comfort despite the fact that it entails really rigorous work in terms of materials”, Ghesquière adds.
Honouring Art
The Beaux-Arts style museum, which houses some of the most compelling treasures, is hosting a fashion show for the first time. The house of Louis Vuitton defined a long-term connection with the art museum that “honours art and architecture, history and modernity, quality and innovation, and the promotion of French culture and savoir-faire”. Ghesquière tells WWD that he is honored to exhibit the new collection at the Musée d’Orsay, which has long served as a source of inspiration for him. The idea to have simple scenography accentuate the historic building in the museum’s Galerie Courbet was purposeful.
The whole fashion show may be seen here.