This weekend, Louis Vuitton hit Rio – specifically, the flying saucer-like Niterói Contemporary Art Museum designed by acclaimed Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer. It was here, where the 2016 Olympics will be held in just two months time, that the house chose to present its Cruise 2017 collection. And yet the show wasn’t just staged in Rio, it was inspired by it too. 

“The idea for this collection was a fusion of this tropical, natural quality that is all around us in Rio and the urban element,” said Nicolas Ghesquière, Louis Vuitton’s artistic director of women’s collections in an interview with WWD. “The scenery can be very dramatic but there is also softness.”

The collection, which was Ghesquière’s third Cruise offering for the house, was inspired by Niemeyer as well. The cast, which included Ghesquière’s pink-haired muse Fernanda Ly and former Dazed cover models Rianne van Rompaey, Lineisy Montero and Natalie Westling, modelled garments that reflected the swirling patterns and colours of the Brazilian’s architecture. Some of the final looks were decorated with ruffles that seemed to reference his gravity-defying constructions. 

It was a sporty collection too, reflecting Ghesquière’s ability to capture the mood of the fashion zeitgeist. “The new casual, the contrast between being dressed up to go out and at the same time being very casual, is clearly defining our time in fashion,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times. “It’s the strongest thing now happening in luxury, this fusion of the sophisticated and the sporty, and how it all works with the reality of what we wear.”