Some runways this season are tilting away from the red carpet — and toward wall-to-wall carpeting, area rugs and bath mats.
These include Louis Vuitton, where Nicolas Ghesquière, a wiz at VIP dressing, turned his attention to homebodies for spring — and it looks inviting.
“In praise of intimacy, dressing for yourself first,” Ghesquière told a huddle of rapt reporters backstage. “It’s fun to dress up at home, too….The atmosphere I was wishing to share was the serenity you feel when you are in the comfort of your home.”
What a treat to see a designer synonymous with sci-fi futurism and architectural silhouettes apply himself to cozier fashion territory: coats with teddy-bear textures and bathrobe shapes; fuzzy knit sweaters and drop-crotch shorts, and dresses as simple as togas, or swags of gorgeous fabric.
He didn’t abandon his zeal for experimentation, creating a camel coat in the guise of a romper — an offbeat garment that recurred frequently — and scattering handfuls of jewels over a sleeveless robe that resembled mink but was in fact brushed silk, reprising an ancient technique.
When clothes were embellished, they dazzled, from a triangular tabard fronted with glossy floral embroideries to the fringed outfits that closed the show, each strand a dégradé of tiny beads to approximate a blurred garden vista.
On the other end of the spectrum were dead simple cotton tops, wide-legged silk pants and even socks and sandals, although the socks came in glossy brocades.
Vuitton has shown its collections at the Louvre for years, and Ghesquière said the rooms chosen this time — what were once the summer apartments of Anne of Austria, Queen of France, and only just restored — got him thinking about staying in, which for Vuitton’s VICs could mean summers aboard a Feadship yacht and winters at a chalet in Megève.
The show itself served as an example of how luxury brands are increasingly leaning into rare and exceptional experiences as a way to burnish their brands, and entertain their most important clients.
Strolling through the Louvre on a Tuesday when it’s closed — and seeing Winged Victory of Samothrace unobstructed — was a luxury in itself. And then guests alighted upon the apartment, with its gilded ceilings and 17th-century frescoes, and — just for the show — a curation of furnishings and objects across centuries by French decorator Marie-Anne Derville. These included 18th-century cabinets, Art Deco seating by Michel Dufet, and ceramics by Pierre-Adrien Dalpayrat.
The music, too, was a bespoke creation, composed by Tanguy Destable and reprising lyrics from “This Must Be the Place,” a 1983 love song by Talking Heads. It was read by Cate Blanchett, and spoke to the universal need to feel grounded.
It goes: “Home is where I want to be, but I guess I’m already there.”
