NOUVEAU IN TOWN

Louis Vuitton’s artistic director Nicolas Ghesquière joins LYNN YAEGER in New York as a coterie of stars showcase his latest collection.

- LYNN YAEGER

The first thing Nicolas Ghesquière does when he arrives in New York City is look out the limo window on his way from the airport, gazing with deep interest at the kids on the street. “It’s a very different street style here than in Paris, a unique combination of fantasy and function. A New Yorker wears athleisure, but then will put luxury pieces on top. I love it! I am always so inspired here.”

It’s been more than two pandemic-plagued years since Ghesquière—who since 2013 has been the artistic director of women’s collections at Louis Vuitton—has been in Manhattan and he is relishing doing the simple things he’s missed so much. “This morning, I woke up so early. I walked around the reservoir and had breakfast at Eat—we don’t have places like that in Paris! It was an ideal morning, and then I had lunch with my friend Grace Coddington at Sant Ambroeus.”

We are chatting this afternoon at The Mercer hotel. So many fashion luminaries stay uptown, but not Ghesquière, who prefers to be in SoHo, in the shadow of the Vuitton store on Greene Street. New York, he confesses, has always been super important to him. “You can do and see things you can’t do anywhere else. From my first trip here, I had that feeling very strongly.” Maybe, I suggest, it is the youthful spirit of the country itself—our republic is less than two-and-a-half centuries old—that appeals to Ghesquière. He is, after all, a designer who cheerfully admits to a lifelong fascination with teen spirit, for what he has called “the impermanence and beautiful volatility of adolescence”.