CRUISE CONTROL
Louis Vuitton’s creative director Nicolas Ghesquière maintains a firm grasp on the maison’s past in order to deliver it into the future. For resort ’ 20, he brought time and history to a head.
Louis Vuitton’s creative director Nicolas Ghesquière maintains a firm grasp on the maison’s past in order to deliver it into the future. For resort ’20, he brought time and history to a head, presenting his collection at New York’s TWA Flight Center. Interview by Edwina McCann. Photographed by Collier Schorr.
Nicolas Ghesquière is a designer of the world. Having helmed Louis Vuitton since 2013, he has delivered itinerant resort collections that speak to every far-flung corner of the globe. Be it Bob and Dolores Hope Estate in Palm Springs, the Niterói Contemporary Art Museum in Rio de Janeiro, the Miho Museum east of Kyoto, or the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul- de-Vence, France, Ghesquière’s Louis Vuitton transcends any single time or place and melds his interest in architecture with the spirit of travel that’s inherent to the French luxury house. For resort ’20, Ghesquière chose the newly restored TWA Flight Center at New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport as the backdrop for his collection. After the show – held on his 48th birthday ahead of this month’s unveiling of the refurbished George Street maison in Sydney – the designer spoke with Vogue Australia’s editor-in-chief, Edwina McCann. Edwina McCann: “Is it true that the first time you came to New York you came through TWA?”
Nicolas Ghesquière: “It’s true I landed in that terminal, but I think it was probably the third time.” EM: “Do you remember what it was like? ” NG: “I have a picture, actually. I remember the feeling of arriving in this masterpiece of architecture and almost thinking: ‘Wow, this is normal for America.’” EM: “You’ve transported us to the most incredible locations for resort shows. What is the importance of the architectural background to you? How does that inspire the show?”
NG: “When I first joined Vuitton, they said: ‘We want to do a cruise show, it’s going to be a new challenge for us’, and it makes so much
sense for the house – this idea of travelling. So I said: ‘It’s not enough. What I would love to do is add something about architecture … in a way not to make people discover but to rediscover some places that are never open to the public, like the Bob and Dolores Hope Estate.’
“I love the interaction between fashion and architecture. What’s better than beautiful construction and beautiful creations, with characters and women dressed for something special like that? So, yes, it’s kind of dreamy for me to be able to use those fantastic places and put my fashion in them.” EM: “Where to next? Take us to the moon!”
NG: “Maybe Australia, actually.”
EM: “We’d love that, that’s what we’re hoping.”
NG: “We’ve been discussing it. I think we should. I love Australia. I’ve only been once. That was, for me, one of the strongest aesthetic shocks of my life. It’s somewhere everyone should go once. I don’t know how to explain it; it’s a trip to another planet. It’s so mystical and the colours are incredible. I love Sydney – incredible food, so beautiful … I also went to Hamilton Island.” EM: “I know you’re a friend of Cate Blanchett. Is she an inspiration?” NG: “Yes, of course. We met 13 years ago, maybe a little before. I had the chance to co-host the 2007 Met Ball with her. That was our official wedding day; since then, we’ve had a very friendly relationship. She’s so smart and has divine taste. Like me, she has a love of history and period pieces, but she’s also totally modern and avant-garde in her choice of theatre and movies.” EM: “I love the mix of historical references in this resort collection. Was that a conscious thing?”
NG: “Yes, yes, yes! There’s always the idea of another dimension at Vuitton. In travel, there is also the idea of time travel and that can
say many things. In this collection it was especially about the arts decoratifs and the golden age of travel, but of course it’s much more than that. It’s about the craft and the way those buildings were designed. We’ve been looking at many different pictures of different buildings – Grand Central Station, the Mohawk Building – which appeared as little bags in the show.
“I always like this strange hybridity in clothes. I think it’s what will define our time in fashion: our ability to mix things in a very particular way, to create something completely new with the integration of the past. It’s a process I use a lot. First, I like to surprise myself because I have to try to feel emotion with my designs initially, to think about if they are good enough to work on and to share with people.”
EM: “How does that unfold in your design room? Do you keep visual references?” NG:
“Yes. We do [mood] boards and my iPad is full of images that I select with my team. Sometimes we don’t really know what [a collection is] going to be, but this time it was quite clear we were going to do silk jacquard and embroidery. We consulted each other all the time until we found the right use. Sometimes you look at something and you really don’t know if it’s going to be shoes or earrings or a make-up colour. It can seem very clear at first: you think you’ll do a T-shirt, but it’s actually what the colour of the make-up should be for the show.”
EM: “I have to ask you about the digital bags for 2020. (Monogram handbags with built-in OLED digital screens and phone connectivity.) How did they come about?” NG:
“We have a department at Vuitton that is always looking for new technology and they came to us saying the technology is now available. We knew Samsung was doing a folding phone and they thought they could use that to do a bag. When they said: ‘We are almost there with the technology’, I said: ‘Okay, show me’, and it was so convincing. There is a little battery inside but it is quite light. I was surprised.”
EM: “And you can talk to your phone through your bag?” NG:
“We were saying, ‘Okay, what is it for?’ because it’s the step after Instagram. It’s a way to share your life with everyone and, okay, there are the privacy concerns, but some people have said: ‘When you have kids and you travel, it’s good because you can put the bag in front of them.’”
EM: “Somebody said they could use it as their boarding pass for the plane.” NG:
“This is smart. More and more things will be possible but I have to be honest, I didn’t want [the technology] to take precedence over the fashion so I was very careful. It was the number two [look] in the show, which was a clear sign of ‘here we go’, but I think we had five bags and I only put two in.”
EM: “People who’ve worked for you have gone on to have great success in their own right and it’s warmed me to see you supporting them. Do you see it as your role to mentor and encourage the next generation of talent?”
NG:
“Julien [Dossena, creative director of Paco Rabanne] stayed with me for five years and I think Natacha [Ramsay-Levi, creative director of Chloé] spent almost 16 years with me in total. They both gave me a lot, especially Natacha. When you spend so much time with someone, it’s not only work. I don’t see myself as a mentor; we just have a shared passion for researching and looking for new and beautiful things.
“With Natacha and Julien, it’s almost like a family; if we have a problem, we can call each other. Most of the time it’s so good to talk about those things that are very specific to our responsibilities, even if we are at different levels and at different houses. I’m the older one and, yes, they worked for me, but I enjoy the fact that we are now a group; honestly, I’ve been waiting to have that for a long time.”
EM: “You must be doing something right …” NG:
“I hope so. I take a little bit of a big brother position. I’m super-proud of what they do, their careers and their appreciation. They are both making the landscape of fashion evolve in their own way. Obviously, they have different personalities, but we clearly have a style in common. People say it’s the school of Ghesquière; I would say it’s our school – I can’t say ‘generation’ because they are younger than me. The way Julien is growing is absolutely fantastic. We share a lot and he understands my design process. Sometimes when I’m not feeling good with where I am at – with the amount of responsibility and pressure – he’ll help me with that, too.”
EM: “To that end, the founder of Louis Vuitton was obviously a wonderful craftsman but also an inventor of sorts. Is that something you feel should permeate through Louis Vuitton today?”
NG:
“It’s my responsibility. It’s not always easy; you have to be very respectful, but you also have to be a bit disrespectful, a bit irreverent. You have to push the walls. It’s my role to add a new vocabulary in a moderated or very balanced way. Vuitton has been very welcoming of that. It’s sometimes hard in terms of organisation because the scale of the house is huge and the consequences are big when you change one thing. That’s why it has to be well thought out.”
EM: “You spoke before about pressure. A huge number of people would have watched your show last night and more than 200,000 people are employed by Louis Vuitton. Are these things that weigh heavily on you? Or do you try not to think about them?”
NG:
“There is pressure, I’m not going to lie. Sometimes it’s heavy but it’s not the most heavy part [of the job]. There’s pressure to find ways to make things evolve and to succeed in the evolution of the aesthetic of Louis Vuitton. To have more and more people in that equation, people who are coming to us because they like what we do and will follow us, that is where there is the most pressure.
“I don’t have as many collections as some designers – there are people who have many more. At Vuitton, we are very determined, very committed and we believe in what we do. If you do make a mistake, the consequences are big, so that’s where the pressure is: being calm enough to manage the risk-taking involved in making decisions.”
EM: “You’ve said before that your customer is not of a particular generation and that you design for all ages. We saw that last night in your incredible friends from the house: Julianne Moore and Australian Samara Weaving. Is it about a sense of style and taste for you?” NG:
“It’s hard to explain but I always think you recognise people and obviously they recognise something in what you do that fits with them and how they project themselves. I don’t know if that makes sense, but sometimes fashion can be that. What’s important with what I do is being truthful to yourself.
“I think the common point with these women is that they project themselves. I know that sometimes there are things I do that are not easy to look at for the first time. It’s gymnastics of the eye and I appreciate the fact that sometimes they will go for something they don’t really love at first sight. But then they will love it a little bit later. For a long time, people have been saying of my work: ‘Okay, this is interesting, this is something that I get, but I don’t really get it completely.’ Then when they fall in love with it, it’s almost like … I’m not saying an addiction, but there is a lot of loyalty around it.”
EM: “It’s deeply personal [the connection with your work], the way Cate Blanchett speaks about you.”
NG: “[And] Jennifer Connelly.”
EM: “Exactly. All of these relationships.”
NG: “When we were introduced [Ghesquière to Blanchett and Connelly], it was the same, 17, 18 years of friendship … And I see it with all of the new people I meet – you know, like Samara – there is this thing.”
EM: “It’s a real love affair.”
NG: “It is a love affair, actually. I think it’s really about a certain quality or artistic expectation that we share – I admire Cate as an actress, I especially like actors and directors. My shows are very inspired by movies, most of the time; I like when a show is quite cinematographic.” EM: “What films are you loving at the moment?” NG: “I’m into The Favourite, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Also his movie with Nicole Kidman, The Killing of a Sacred Deer. I thought
The Favourite was absolutely exquisite in every way. The acting, of course. I mean, it’s difficult to say who’s best: Olivia Colman is fantastic, but Emma Stone is incredible – her beauty and the way she acts is stunning. And the costumes and set are crazy. I was just thinking: ‘I’m going to throw away all of my Modernist furniture in Paris; I want period stuff.’”
EM: “What about the soundtrack at last night’s show? I mean, aside from Mark Ronson’s incredible DJ’ing at the after-party, there was something playing that was almost like an old weather report.” NG:
“Yes. It’s a radio station. Suzy Menkes said that woman is still on the radio at night. It’s a weather advisory service for boats. The terminal, the voice – we wanted to [re-create] the feeling you have when you are travelling and you hear a voice calling your flight. We are all familiar with that feeling, so we wanted to express that and also talk about the weather. It was a very atmospheric start to the show.”
EM: “I have to ask you about the Met Ball, held three days ago. Do you look forward to it, in terms of who you’re going to have at your table and what they’re going to wear? Do you propose something to them?”
NG:
“It’s almost like another collection. I do drawings inspired by the show we held earlier in Paris and we send those to them. Some will speak with stylists and others, like Emma [Stone], will send a text message. It’s what I like, you know, and we build the look little by little. It’s exciting! I always feel like: ‘Is this what it’s going to be like when – or if – I get married one day? Is this the feeling?’
“Especially the Met I hosted with Cate. I remember we had so much fun. She came to The Carlyle to change. We didn’t know each other very well and I remember she came from a shoot with Irving Penn, who’d done the most incredible portrait of her for Elizabeth and for some reason the costumes were destroyed after the movie, or something happened, and they couldn’t access them. Penn called me and said: ‘I want you to do your version of Cate Blanchett’s dress from Elizabeth’, and I thought: ‘This is so challenging!’
“I had a few meetings and made the dress. Then Cate was shot in it and she showed up at The Carlyle late after the shoot. I was already overwhelmed by the fact that Penn was shooting Cate in my dress – and then we hosted the Met. That was almost 13 years ago, so I was 35. It was like we were getting ready for a wedding. I know she’s married, but it’s the fantasy of being married to Cate Blanchett. We dressed up then we arrived and did the receiving line, which was hilarious, I have to say, and we had quite a good night.”
EM: “So tell me, what do you do to relax? Do you have a dog?” NG:
“I have two dogs! What do I do to relax? I have a country house not far from Paris that I go to sometimes to try and fix things.”
EM: “Then do you go away for the summer?” NG:
“I usually go to a nice beach, to Spain or on a boat. I take a big summer break like every French person – a good three weeks. So that’s what I do to relax. I have nice friends in Paris, so I spend time with them when I can. It’s just difficult because I work so much. Once you can’t see people a few times, it’s normal that they stop telling you what they’re doing, you know? So you have to remind them: ‘Okay, I can’t do this at the moment, but I will!’ In a few days I actually have a week or 10 days off, so that’s very good. I’m going to start calling my friends back.”
EM: “Nicolas, thank you for spending your birthday with me and Vogue, I’ll let you get back to it! I do hope we can entice you to come to Australia.”
NG:
“Yes! Absolutely.”