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The designer wants to make sure you notice the details in his latest collection for the luxury fashion house.
Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images
The designer wants to make sure you notice the details in his latest collection for the luxury fashion house.
The thing about fashion shows is that it can be hard to appreciate the detail on what you see walk down the runway. Your seat can be too far away [or your view blocked by someone's head or phone]; or, there are just too many things to focus on at once. That's why we'll revisit the images after the fact, or wait for the brand to release close-ups of a new collection — and why editors, stylists, buyers and other industry professionals schedule re-sees.
Nicolas Ghesquière didn't want the details to get lost in his latest collection for Louis Vuitton. In fact, he made sure you couldn't miss them, blowing up the size of a puff collar, a zipper, a buckle, a button, a bow, a belt — you name it, he supersized it for Spring 2023.
"Femininity is at the heart of the matter and Louis Vuitton joins the conversation: looking at it through emphasis, glorifying its complexity, magnifying it, putting it in the spotlight," the brand writes in the show notes. "It's a stylistic exercise that re-evaluates the proportions of clothing and its adjuncts, one in which the codes of femininity unsettle scale."
This season, "the infinitely large and the infinitely small come together on silhouettes, inviting a second look," the notes explain. The details Louis Vuitton blows up in proportion aren't random, either: They represent "the custodians of a story that endures," accoutrements that have been, and will continue to be, part of the brand's legacy. There are also XXL pouches and top-handle clutches, confirming a trend we've seen across Spring 2023 collections: It's all about the big bags.
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There was also a supersized element to the venue. Louis Vuitton tapped artist Philippe Parreno to design the set for Tuesday's show, staged outdoors at the Louvre's Place du Carrousel, which is described as a "monster-flower," from which models — including brand ambassador/Ghesquière favorite/"Squid Game" star Hoyeon Jung — emerged.
See every single look from Louis Vuitton's Spring 2023 collection in the gallery below.
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In the middle of the Musée du Louvre’s Cour Carrée in Paris sat an undeniably peculiar attraction; one that looked like a spaceship but felt more like a carnival tent. Catwalks sprang outwards amidst a conglomeration of bright red shades that assumed the shape of a “monster-flower,” meeting in a continuous circle on the outside border that hosted rows of white chairs underneath lines of blinking lights. Invitees sat patiently awaiting another collection by Nicolas Ghesquière that proved equally as unconventional and unexpected as Philippe Parreno’s mastermind set.
Exaggerated was the theme and oversized was the execution. Ghesquière did anything but hold back as the opening look drew immediate attention and a glimpse into the entirety of the Maison’s Spring/Summer 2023 collection. HoYeon Jung donned a two-piece set with bulky tubing at the shoulders and hips, a drawstring wrapped horizontally around an A-line skirt, and one of the biggest zippers one has ever seen [in fact, they were, as Ghesquière reported them as the largest ever manufactured].
This sense of disruptive proportion carried on throughout the 46-piece collection with tubing reappearing as a circular neckline and fastened asymmetrically on the hips while zoomed-in buckle-belt motifs were strewn across leather suits, shirts, and jackets. Black lace tights studded with crystals sat beneath a series of mini-dresses featuring an eclectic mix of geometric shapes, abstract patterns, colorblocking, and large draping bows. Sheer meshwork joined shiny fabrics and playful fringe in pieces that spoke to Ghesquière’s affinity for contrasting materiality. Elsewhere, structured leather was meticulously tailored into sleek dresses and jackets with warm colors and oversized straps, mirroring the cyclopean gold clasps repeated throughout the collection.
A series of patterned, textured pants [very on-trend in both high and low fashion] met with massive waistbelts and billowing cardigans. Pocketed dresses and a recurrence of boots pointed a little utilitarian, yet a bit more experimental. Sometimes innocent, sometimes daunting, and always a paradox, Ghesquière presented a cohesive work reflective of his current dichotomous relationship to womenswear. Feminine codes were disrupted and misconstrued in a series of garments dedicated to the unknown, escaping the boundaries of proportion and leaving much anticipation for what’s to come.
Click through to see every look from Louis Vuitton Spring/Summer 2023.