FEATURES THE FUTURE LOOKS BRIGHT Louis Vuitton’s resort collection had lively colour, inspiring prints and plenty of sporting spirit.
Set against a futuristic backdrop in Rio de Janeiro, Nicolas Ghesquière’s resort collection for Louis Vuitton had lively colour, inspiring prints and plenty of sporting spirit. By Zara Wong. Photographed by Tommy Ton.
Ahandful of golf courses surround the French town of Loudon, where Nicolas Ghesquière was raised. His father managed one of them when the designer was young, setting in place a solid interest in sport. Though, as the story goes, his strengths lay further afield, excelling instead at athletics and equestrian.
There must have been a personal – if not career – triumph, then, for Rio de Janeiro to be secured as the destination for Ghesquière’s second Louis Vuitton resort show just three months before hosting the Olympics. “I discovered a country where the city is so strong and the nature is so strong,” he says about his visit to Brazil late last year. “So it’s really about urban clothes that people wear in the city, but at the same time the tropical, very exotic. I love this contrast.”
We’re standing on the sloped entrance to Museu de Arte Contemporânea in Rio’s Niterói, the ramp snaking sinuously up and around the building. The South Atlantic Ocean surrounds the museum and a pool of water lies at its base. “I can imagine what kind of girl would walk into that building, and what kind of fashion we want to design for those women,” he says. Devised by late Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, the museum seems too simplistic to rely on its most common description as a UFO – but, in person, the effect is even more startling, with its flattened disc sitting in tandem with the horizon. It underscores Ghesquière’s gift in pushing the boundaries of fashion – to wonder what the future will bring to design.
And for this, he looks to sportswear. It’s always been clear in his work. At his first creative director position at Balenciaga, he pioneered the use of neoprene-type fabric, taking a leaf from the world of scuba and performance wear; other designs looked to equestrian through the lens of 60s mod. Maturity has evolved his translation of sportswear, now less immediately distinguishable as a specific type of sport without losing the activity and vigour. There were the monochromatic checks of racing and Louis Vuitton-customised windbreakers,
slashed and hacked, ruched into a cape or into a dress, the colours taken from late Brazilian visual artist Hélio Oiticica, whom he’d discovered at a modern art museum in São Paulo. The scuba style was there, now cut open and layered to reveal a kaleidoscope of colours and spilling out into frills.
It might be too obvious to focus only on the sports aspect – it’s so easy to do, what with the saturated Olympics coverage this year – but the collection also reminded us of Ghesquière’s breadth: delicate floral-printed dresses and jacket and skirt combinations nudged their way into the mix for those who were seeking to deviate their look from the ever-present athletic style.
“You know, the cruise collection is always very fun because we’re able to mix winter and summer and you know we have to talk to the whole world,” he says. “When it’s summer for you, it’s winter for me, so it’s going to be in the store for more than six months. We really have to make sure we do those two things and I have a lot of fun designing, to be honest.”
Ghesquière has an easy manner, and looks at you directly in the eye. The charisma is unaffected. He sets his eyes on the people around him, holding court by decree of his position and power and not by force. This influence was seen recently in accessories. “I made the Petite Malle grow into bum bags this season,” he says in reference to the boombox bag he introduced to his era of Louis Vuitton. “Music and movement are related to Brazil and I grew up with bum bags, so it’s my generation; it doesn’t look like it’s yours,” he lightly teases. The design upgrades include the ability to play music through them via Bluetooth.
We’re amid a throng of his friends, colleagues, clients and press, many of whom have flown in from around the world. There is a noticeable Brazilian contingent, with locally born models in attendance. But because it’s Brazil, their local models have names like Isabeli Fontana and Alessandra Ambrosio. They’re wearing pieces from his last autumn/winter ’16/’17 collection – the resort shown here is a continuation on the former’s theme. Met with cheers by the crowds waiting outside the museum, Fontana and Ambrosio stride in their future-heavy form-fitting designs, looking less like supermodels and more like superheroes. Dressing women for the everyday fascinates many designers, but for Ghesquière’s latest design endeavours, superheroes are even better. Up, up and away.