Louis Vuitton, with Rosalía, rocks the Louvre

Got to hand it to the Louis Vuitton men’s design team, they haven’t had a creative director in over a year, and they still put on a cracking show in Paris on freezing Thursday afternoon.

At least at the finale they got to take a bow, led by Colm Dillane of KidSuper fame, as the American designer completed a one-season collab’ with Louis Vuitton. All posing for photos with Rosalía, after a wild performance by the Catalan singer.

Teeny bopper and flash mob fury outside the show, where a couple of thousand fans screeched every time a rapper, actor or performer appeared from a limousine. Inside, a huge set with a series of connecting rooms, from den to living room to kitchen, like the backdrop of a youthful TV series melodrama. Euphoria in the Louvre.

Reaching the boudoir, singer Rosalía went into a frenzy meltdown on the bed. Before rolling and writhing on a bed, as the cast marched by to hit their marques in front of the photographers’ pit.

All is changing at Vuitton, where CEO Michael Burke – dapper in an impeccable black suit – toured LV’s front-row for the last time during a menswear season. After a brilliantly successful decade managing the world’s most profitable luxury brand, Burke is moving upstairs to work on special projects directly for the lord of luxury himself, LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault. His successor, Pietro Beccari will join shortly from Dior.

“Don’t worry, I won’t be going very far,” smiled Burke, sporting a new Van Dyke beard and moustache.

Back on the catwalk, the collection opened with suits. For Vuitton, under Burke, has also grown into a great resource for suits – this season, made with crisp jackets and humongous pants. Cut with darts and vents all slightly askew; and finished with fabric belts they were pretty impressive and altogether authoritative. All the way to one outrageous suit made of layered sheets from a literary novel.

One huge trend in menswear is the outrageously large pair of trousers, and again Vuitton won in that category, especially with a brilliant patchwork ensemble of monogram and damier prints mixed up with grey and anthracite denim.

Euphoric color – with felt wool coats done in giant fruit prints, where apples and lemons were twice their normal size. Best of all, some great coats in fabrics printed as pixilated photos, some with just a huge single eye.

All told, the collection probably needed a good edit, but then one would have lost something of gutsy, let’s break a few rules quality.

Every single model, more or less, carried a bag. It is Vuitton after all. And you could hear the cash registers ringing, or the ping of a mobile phone more likely, at the sight of the silvery toile totes and carry-alls; mashed up metallic man-bags John Chamberlain crash worthy; and even a delightful cover for a retro 18mm film camera. Then going into bag ecstasy with patchwork intarsia totes featuring portrait paintings remade in leather.

Before Rosalía danced backwards up the runway, and the entire design team came out applauding the audience.

There may be no creative director at Vuitton, but when it comes to their menswear the house’s direction is undoubtedly creative.

Louis Vuitton, with Rosalía, rocks the Louvre

See also