Monday, October 12, 2015

Louis Vuitton becomes Balenciaga; Balenciaga becomes Vetements/Louis Vuitton/Margiela

It's been a week since fashion month came to an end. It's overwhelming enough -- loads of individualism. It's chock-full of jelly beans (or gummy bears or pochi) to digest. In particular, the most delicious was served during the last feast day (naturell'ment!).

Kering (parent conglomerate of Gucci, Saint Laurent, et al) announced the appointment of Demna Gvasalia, the main man of toast-of-the-town up-and-coming Margielaic label VETEMENTS, as Alexander Wang's replacement at Balenciaga. This was hours before the closing day of the Paris Collections that would kicked off with Louis Vuitton. The LV women's collections, after all, is now artistically-helmed by Balenciaga's reinventionist, its former designer for 15 years, Nicolas Ghesquiere. 

Crushie! Via
Incidentally, Mr. Gvasalia has worked for LV during both the tenure of Marc Jacobs and Mr. Ghesquiere.

(But) LOUIS VUITTON ain't rattled af, duh!; Nicolas Ghesquiere's show for LV gets solid high marks on the list of best collections from the runways of New York, London, Milan and Paris. 


While his A/W 2014 brilliant LV debut
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(albeit subtle for his stunning reputation) of stripped back "art of wardrobing" done in masterful Seventies savoir-faire had 

"sent ripples through fashion that are registering this season with an industry-spanning 1970s revival," as observed by Nicole Phelps formerly of Style.com),

Nicolas's latest spectacle has been lauded as a return to his true form as one multi-dimensional designer -- and product category smasher.



Initial reaction:

It was my first this season to watch any live feed, which got buggy as usual (what to expect from having the worst broadband connection in Southeast Asia!)
  • So many screens! Visual smorgasboard!
  • Sailor Mood headband on Fernanda (the pink-haired obvs)! 
  • Nicolas finally unleashes his inner otaku
  • As the show progresses, audience members are either Instagram clicky-clicky or watching sluggish-ly (why? for what turned out to be the most fantasy-tic this fashion month?).
  • Sure thing: Vuitton is wont to take off its loyal customers to an awe-inspiringly virtual journey.
I will have to re-watch. 

The devil is in the details:

The recent showcase assembles terrific looks born as commentary to digitization and technology. 

Yet, mere mortals like me will not appreciate the couture-like works done on every (amounting to hundred or so) wearable, luxurious pieces by simply watching the show video and browsing the runway looks (Alas, we miss the light airiness of trolling Style.com). Thank your god for the 'Details' section which shows that this is capital Fashion for a reason.

There are many cool fashions in this collection but I can’t enumerate them all in this post. To sum up, expect a chica-fied virtual avatars, among other tribes, to walk the Earth come Spring/Summer next year! (RELATED Reading: ".. it was all about fashion tribes — one for each designer, each one with its inescapable dos and don'ts — and not just because wild hints of primeval shapes and robust whiffs of raw exoticism recurred as significant style tropes in collections" - Angelo Flaccavento. When in Paris, Choose Your Tribe. Business of Fashion.)

P.S. WWD informed that the likely next stop of the Louis Vuitton Cruise Collection is the 2016 Summer Olympics host city, Rio, Brazil. The fashion resource separately reports that NG collaborator set designer Es Devlin incidentally "will be working on a project of an even bigger scale: the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro." As for the location? My Madame Auring crystal ball fearless prediction 

(and you read it first here): The Niteroi Contemporary Art Museum. If you've been following @nicolasghesquiereofficial (a sci-fi geek who likes holidazing on island destinations), you already how this could be THE venue. 

The landmark was architected by Brazilian modernist Oscar Niemeyer.

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