At Louis Vuitton Cruise 2027, Fine Art Collides With Rock ‘n’ Roll

2 min read

New York has always thrived on contradiction. Downtown, there’s grit and glamour; uptown, the elegance of old-world polish. The magic lives in the space where those identities collide. Tonight at The Frick Collection, that tension shaped Nicolas Ghesquière’s cruise 2027 collection for Louis Vuitton.

In a city defined by constant motion, Ghesquière looked to the idea of traveling through eras as the conceptual backbone of the collection. He discovered something special inside the maison’s archives: a 1930s leather suitcase, reworked with a graphic marker drawing by ’80s pop artist and downtown fixture Keith Haring.

A print by the artist—aptly nicknamed the “Big Apple”—appeared on a boxy cropped top, tailored subtly at the shoulders and paired with high-waisted denim and sculptural padded heels that evoked the look of cleats. Elsewhere, Haring’s vibrant motifs energized structured leather topcoats and sharply folded, origami-inspired miniskirts.

Contrast trickled down to every aspect. As models like Alana Haim and Scarlett White—the daughter of White Stripes rocker Jack White and model Karen Elson—made their way down the runway in hyper-modern minidresses and belted leather, they were backdropped by the works of European masters like Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Johannes Vermeer.

Ghesquière—who took his bow in the quintessentially American outfit of denim-on-denim, go figure—mixed French savoir faire with a distinctly stateside appeal. Tried-and-true blue jeans were shown with pleated, high-neck blouses evoking the Renaissance or, in the case of the opening look, a leather Louis Vuitton luggage trunk. Bloomer shorts came with double-stacked waistbands, only to be made formal with strong-shouldered racing coats. And deliciously colorful patchwork evening coats featured romantic chiffon hems.

Ghesquière’s world-building continued to influence the accessories, where bejeweled takeout containers, vinyl-shaped clutches, and monogram boxing gloves tapped into the city’s edge. The Ghesquière woman—some with dip-dyed halo hair à la the maison’s newest ambassador, Alysa Liu—was outfitted for a life lived in motion.

It’s been a busy few days for Manhattan’s high fashion set. Over the weekend, Demna presented Gucci’s cruise offering smack dab in the middle of Times Square. Tonight, Ghesquière proved that the Louis Vuitton woman, and all her layers, remains the ultimate object of fascination.

As the glam-punk artist Peaches, whose 2006 track opened the show, sang, “Boys wanna be her.”

Matthew Velasco is the Fashion News Editor at ELLE. Based in New York City, he previously worked as a News Writer at W magazine and an Assistant Editor at V magazine. Outside of fashion, he enjoys interior design, tennis (both watching and playing), and a jam-packed antique store.