Put the trackies away! Nicolas Ghesquière wants us to dress better in our own homes
Though the sun is beaming over Paris today (September 30), Louis Vuitton’s latest collection wants us to stay inside. While other designers look to nature for inspiration, creative director Nicolas Ghesquière decided to celebrate the great indoors for SS26.
With day two of Paris Fashion Week now well underway, guests filed into Louis Vuitton’s usual show space – a little-known spot called the Louvre – and whisked into the museum’s Denon wing. Situated on the ground floor, the rooms were originally built as Anne of Austria’s summer apartments (the Queen of France and mother of King Louis XIV), back in 1655. For today’s show, the space had been modernised by interior designer Marie-Anne Derville, who took pieces of furniture from varying historical periods and brought them together to create an overall mismatched and contemporary look. The strange pairings of Art Deco seats, 18th century cabinets and 19th century sculptures was a journey through the past 300 years of Parisian interiors.
As for the guests, all the usual suspects turned up to support Ghesquière: Zendaya, Emma Stone, Lisa, Léa Seydoux, and Jaden Smith, to name a few. Interestingly, Smith was seated next to Christian Louboutin, a week after we learned that the actor has been appointed Louboutin’s first men’s creative director.
As the show began to start, Cate Blanchett’s dulcet Australian accent filled the space (always a welcome sound). Sadly, the actress wasn’t in attendance, though she did lend her voice to the show’s soundtrack – offering a spoken word reinterpretation of Talking Heads’ feel-good hit “This Must Be the Place”. The song pointed to the theme of the collection: if home is where the heart is, home is also a place you had better look your best.
Forget working from home in your PJs and putting off showering until lunch, Ghesquière’s SS26 collection was all about finding joy in the “boundless freedom of the private sphere”, according to the show notes. And no, that doesn’t mean frollicking about the kitchen in the buff, it means throwing on your Sunday best, even if it’s a Tuesday afternoon and you’ve got nowhere to go.
The first third of the collection featured mostly neutral, earthy tones, before brightening towards the middle with cool powder blues and candy floss pinks. Some floor-length overcoats resembled dressing gowns, and silhouettes were slouched and loose – almost sleepy, retaining a watercolour palette throughout. Like the furniture scattered around the room, the clothes took from various centuries, paying homage to different eras of French style. Playful flourishes were dotted throughout, from extravagant fur collars to multi-coloured tassels and sweeping silks.
Like bored princesses locked in their towers, it’s impossible to look at this collection without casting our minds back to five years ago, when the whole world was playing dress-up and unable to leave the house. Thankfully, unlike our pandemic outfits, Louis Vuitton SS26’s collection went beyond the waist-up.
Scroll through the gallery above for the collection in full