Photo: Giovanni Giannoni/ Courtesy of Louis Vuitton
Nicolas Ghesquière’s latest collection for Louis Vuitton plays on the subtle and sculptural, with his motifs striking motocross, mod, and a touch of whimsy.
In the Long Museum West Bund in Shanghai, Nicolas Ghesquière’s runway rivered through stark white walls and bright fluorescent lights. As with any Louis Vuitton presentation, location is always carefully considered; at the Pre-Fall 2024 show, its monochrome setting would contrast the house’s pre-fall collection, punctuated by 3D cartoon animals printed in full saturation. A collaboration with Chinese artist Sun Yitian, her graphic prints—a cheetah, penguin, zebra, and pink bunny, whose starry eyes held the house’s fleur de lys—decorated the fronts of leather-strapped car coats, shift dresses, and miniskirts that topped asymmetrical chiffon hems.
And these vibrant prints weren’t Ghesquière’s only form of play: After the show of modish silhouettes came experimentation with prints, cutouts, and layering. One padded vest could zip down, extending the shoulder and revealing a shot of turquoise. If the utilitarian take on jutted-out shoulders didn’t harken back to his previous collections already, he shows mini puff sleeves as part of a series of painted florals. Across a palette of deep green and magenta, light pink and orange, and baby blue, yellow, and birch, he presented mini dresses tied up by a sculptural bow and skirts with ruffled trails of fabric. The swishy quality to the pieces acts as a nice bridge from his spring 2024 collection to fall, to which his pre-fall collection finale makes a direct connection.
The last looks held oversized leather vests decked with silver hardware, fur-topped cropped coats, and dresses bubbled up to evocative volumes, in the neutrals diffused across his grand 10th-anniversary show at the Cour Carée du Louvre. With this collection immediately following that sentimental, self-referential show, Ghesquière’s designs have never felt more assured. As he pulls from his design signatures and imbues in them a sense of newness, he spurs a line of direction toward a destination we can’t wait to traverse next.
