5 Things To Know About Louis Vuitton’s Modern French FW23 Show

What is French style? This was the question Nicolas Ghesquière asked himself and his team – who come from around the world – during the research stages of creating this season’s Louis Vuitton collection. The answer unfolded in a typically abstract proposal that transformed some of the signifiers of French style into new manifestations. “Classicism with a twist,” the designer called it: the cliché pearl necklace expanded into an entire pearl dress; bustier dresses were blown-up to supersized scale; there were deconstructed and amplified collar, sleeve and bib elements; prim sweaters inflated and transformed into puffed-up mini-dresses; and peignoirs – the kind you see Parisian ladies wearing on their balconies – were worn over effervescently textured shorts. It was French style through the trippy trans-historicist mind of Ghesquière, where nothing was as it seemed, and yet strangely familiar, all at once.

The show took place within the upstairs ballroom and galleries of the Musée d’Orsay, where Ghesquière had invited the artist Philippe Parreno – whose work, much like the designer’s own, revolves around concepts of time – to create an environment for the collection. The elevated runway he built was paved like the streets of Paris, complete with LV-adorned sewer caps and surrounded by what looked like the fragments of a loudspeaker. Some of these strange technological elements rotated slowly like antennas. “Every model has an acoustic device,” Ghesquière explained. “The soundscape captures heartbeats or the fall of footsteps, as well as noise from the city outside. Every model generates a resonance that interacts with echoes from the street.” It unfolded in a soundtrack of traffic noise and footsteps – the everyday atmosphere of Paris.

Louis Vuitton wasn’t the first house to put its show onto a raised podium this season. Elevation – physical and figurative – has been a theme in Paris, and it’s telling of our moment in time. When we flock to the French capital for the shows, we’re following in the footsteps of tradition, which – centuries before there was haute couture or ready-to-wear – had the royal houses of the world looking to this country for style advice. In the 18th century, the snobbish courts of Northern Europe even took to speaking French rather than their own languages, because the Franco ways represented elegance and decorum. In a new time of strife and uncertainty, it seems we’re once again employing fashion to give us the tools to look and behave appropriately – to hit the right tone. As an historical arbiter of taste and behaviour, French style is integral to that process.

“Our history is based on a certain classicism and conventions that are very much part of the legend of Louis Vuitton, a name that also speaks to French culture,” Ghesquière said. “It was about transposing that classicism into a pure expression of fashion. How to articulate that French allure, that blend of sophistication and nonchalance that continues to fascinate the entire world,” he added, explaining that a dress he designed for Anne Démians, who in January became the first female architect inaugurated into the Académie des Beaux-Arts, set him on the path towards exploring French style this season. While it was an abstract affair, he consistently referenced the everyday: terrific coats that hit the season’s soft spot for a broad-shouldered, ankle-length silhouette (they looked like wool but were actually leather), expanded car coats with leather patches, and padded cabans so architectonic they were almost built like houses.

As always, Ghesquière studded his time-travelling parade with excellent accessories. “The boots are like a little wink, as they’re hand-painted to look like pumps,” he said. “The iewellery features little musical instruments, all the brass in a marching band… It is a collection made of faux-semblants, or illusions.” That approach manifested in bags shaped like houses, and others adorned with the Louis Vuitton name imagined as a Parisian street sign. The Tricolour was adapted into a series of quilted handbags, and Santiago-like ankle boots were embellished with sculptural straps on the back, hinting at the construction native to Louis Vuitton’s bags. Some models wore illuminated glasses as a nod to the Opéra Garnier via The Phantom of the Opera, but in the everyday sidewalk context that framed Ghesquière’s show, they recalled the fad for phototherapeutic face masks you now see in the most unlikely places. At the end of the day, French style is played out in the streets. It’s a living, breathing organism.