Jet, Set, Show

A ‘royal’ shaman, inclement weather, a front row of Archlight-wearing celebrities and influencers, a Grace Coddington collaboration and designs that borrowed from the future and the past—this pretty much summed up Nicolas Ghesquière’s cruise 2019 collection for Louis Vuitton. PRIYANKA KHANNA reports from Saint-Paul de Vence

THE DESPATCH

I learned a fun fact on my trip to the Côte d’Azur earlier this year: In the 1920s and ’30s the French Riviera, (alluringly brought to life by fitzgerald in Tender Is The Night, the summer home of the billionaire jet-set with their 500foot yachts and best known for the flashbulb-popping annual Cannes film Festival) was actually a hotbed for Modernist art and architecture. Le Corbusier famously designed a seaside retreat in Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, and the Villa Noailles (that now hosts art and fashion exhibits) was known for its gatherings of Surrealists.

It seemed apt then that Nicolas Ghesquière, a longtime proponent of modern art and architecture, set his cruise 2019 show for Louis Vuitton at the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul de Vence. (Previous shows have been held at Kyoto’s Miho Museum, Rio de Janeiro’s Niterói Contemporary Art Museum and Bob Hope’s Palm Springs estate.) Built in 1964 by the Spanish architect Josep Lluís Sert for art patrons Aimé and Marguerite Maeght, the building, a popular art destination (Ghesquière apparently visits every time he’s in the region), includes a Giacometti courtyard, a Miro labyrinth (where the showing took place) and seminal works by Pierre Bonnard and Marc Chagall.

For a little fashion refresher, the cruise collection, also known as resort, was traditionally meant to wardrobe the jet set on their travels but has now become one of the most important collections for a house. It’s precisely this reason that major fashion houses invest a considerable amount of resources to create incredible experiences. Shows are often held in venues not usually accessible to the public, in all corners of the globe. In short, no stone is left unturned. Not even the vagaries of Mother Nature, apparently.