The Paris rumor mill has been in overdrive since news broke that Louis Vuitton has taken possession of a mammoth building on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées that was previously earmarked for Dior’s new headquarters.
“It’s hard to put a label on this space because it will be a place that reunites all the expressions of Vuitton: cultural, artistic, commercial, obviously, but also hospitality. It’s part of the role of major luxury brands today to entertain in every sense of the word,” the label’s creative director of womenswear told WWD.
Despite its brief history, it was tempting to imagine patrons arriving in the lobby with trolleys of Vuitton luggage in tow. Ghesquière conjured those ghosts with his opening sequence of full-skirted dresses in contrasting stripes and checks that had a whiff of Victorian propriety, though he said they slip on like a T-shirt.
For most people, travel is a little less romantic these days, with understaffed airports and missing luggage just some of the hazards of modern journeys. Ghesquière is aware of that, as well as the impact of global warming, which was sharply illustrated by the sizzling temperatures at the Paris shows.