Last week Nicolas Ghesquière took to Instagram to announce that he had renewed his Louis Vuitton contract with the hashtag #notgoinganywhere. This week he made guests, including Emma Stone and Jennifer Connelly, trek up to the southern French hilltop village of Saint-Paul-de-Vence for the Louis Vuitton Cruise 2019 show. It was held at the Fondation Maeght, a private art foundation whose gardens are filled with works by the likes of Alberto Giacometti and Marc Chagall.
The Resort show, Ghesquière’s fifth for the house, was his most free and expressive so far.
Ghesquière collaborated with his friend, the stylist and former Vogue Creative Director Grace Coddington, on a collection of bags based on the sketches she does of her beloved cats and his dog. Over-the-knee boot/sneaker hybrids also featured, and being an elaboration of the best-selling trainers of Spring ’18, they made the prim and proper pumps of the recent Fall collection look very out of place.
The clothes were fresh and cool, featuring 1980s shoulders and the same triangulated torsos of his recent collections, with 18th-century sleeves and silhouettes. Also making an appearance were lingerie dresses and tap pants in lace-trimmed silks with working girl jackets and moto bombers; and iridescent tops bristling with feathers shown with bags featuring illustrations of Grace Coddington’s cats.
Although Nicolas Ghesquière is #notgoinganywhere, Louis Vuitton is certainly moving forward, ahead of the game.