TIME TRAVEL

“I like the figure of a vampire who travels through the ages, adapting to dress codes of the era,” says Nicolas Ghesquière. Transfixing fashionistas this Spring/summer 2022 season is the Louis Vuitton creative director’s interpretation of the night creature’s mercurial quality. This is not his first time – he recently designed the costumes, including the outfits for lead actress and house ambassador Alicia Vikander, for a new HBO series that is a remake of Olivier Assayas’ 1996 cult film-in-a-film Irma Vep. Staged at Passage Richelieu, which was transformed into a hall of mirrors illuminated by antique chandeliers, the show unveiled dramatic deconstructed dresses exaggerated with girding, protruding hips and layers of fabric and lace; as well as Victorian silhouettes adorned with long capes, cropped tailcoats and ruffled high-neck collars. Other looks referenced more recent eras, such as the hippie dresses and asymmetrical chainmail slips of the ’70s, and the oversized jacket and leather pants of the ’80s. It seemed like an unboxing of treasures passed down from family heirlooms, except that the pieces are stylishly mis-matched and layered to look glamorously futuristic.