Outside Kyoto, atop a bridge between two valleys, Nicholas Ghesquiè re held his fourth Cruise show for Louis Vuitton.
O utside Kyoto, atop a bridge between two valleys, Nicholas Ghesquière held his fourth Cruise show for Louis Vuitton. It was the most spectacular as well as the furthest-flung of shows. Guests travelled for 24 hours to watch a 20-minute carnival of style. The pristine white-carpeted catwalk was so long that it incorporated what looked like airport-style conveyor belts to speed things up.
That’s as it should be, because Cruise collections are really for women who prefer to spend the winter in tropical countries, and have a lot of experience of airports and no use at all for a fluffy coat or woolly jumper.
G hesquière has always chosen world-beating modernist buildings for his Cruise collections, but for sheer drama this surpassed even Bob Hope’s house in Palm Springs – home to the Cruise show two years ago – or last year’s Niterói Museum in Rio. That was simply a spaceship perched on a rock by the sea. This year’s was set on a causeway through thick forest into what looked like a Bond villain’s lair.
S tars including Michelle Williams, Jennifer Connolly and Game of Thrones’ Sophie Turner sat on steel benches to enjoy the designer’s take on Paris-Meets-Japan. No one will say how much the extravaganza costs, but other designers estimate it’s around £5m for those few theatrical minutes.
