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Luxury

Louis Vuitton’s Nicolas Ghesquière loves his creative freedom – and so do we

STORYWinnie Chung
Ghesquière lets his imagination and inspiration flow free when it comes to design
Ghesquière lets his imagination and inspiration flow free when it comes to design
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Ghesquière lets his imagination and inspiration flow free when it comes to design

Successful fashion designers are, more often than not, a little temperamental – a state of mind usually heightened before each major runway show. So it is a relief to find Louis Vuitton’s creative director Nicolas Ghesquière in an energetically good mood when we arrive at his suite in Kyoto with barely seconds to spare, due to a late pickup.

 

Nothing in Ghesquière’s smiling, relaxed demeanour lets on that the Louis Vuitton Cruise 2018 show is scheduled to start in a few hours at the stunning Miho Museum, about a 40-minute drive away.
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This will be LV’s fourth cruise show, a tradition that the fashion house started only when Ghesquière joined as creative director of women’s wear in 2013. Cruise collections are travel or resort ready-to-wear collections that some fashion houses release before the two major runway shows in Paris.
Louis Vuitton’s cruise show in Kyoto was beautifully set. Nicolas Ghesquière says because cruise collections can be summer or winter pieces, they allow him to exercise greater creativity.
Louis Vuitton’s cruise show in Kyoto was beautifully set. Nicolas Ghesquière says because cruise collections can be summer or winter pieces, they allow him to exercise greater creativity.

He enjoys the cruise collections even though they have only a few short months to work on them between the major Paris runways. “I have a very focused story when I do Paris, but for the cruise, I let myself go further. Because it’s winter and summer mixed together, you’ll be able to do things you were not able to do [for the two main collections]. In Paris, it’s more about creating a surprise or an emotion that is in the middle of the proposition of fashion. So it’s clearly a different process,” Ghesquière says.

Besides giving him the freedom to flit between seasons, the cruise shows have also allowed him to take his events to stunning landscapes around the world, starting from Monaco’s Palace Square, to the John Lautner-designed Bob and Dolores Hope estate in Palm Springs, US, in 2016, and the Museu de Arte Contemporaneo de Niteroi in Rio de Janeiro last year, and now IM Pei’s spectacular Miho Museum.

Watch the finale of Louis Vuitton’s cruise show:

“We invite people to come to see and even afford them to travel the world to see. It has a dimension that is more … not a performance. It’s not about art, but a certain moment with a certain emotion that is not in the realm of other fashion shows. It’s a moment that is really by itself, a capsule of time. In that place, it’s more free,”the 46-year-old French native adds.

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