A Look at the Louis Vuitton Resort 2026 Collection
Way back in 2000, at the very dawn of the 21st century, Nicolas Ghesquière came to the southern French town of Avignon to visit the historic Palais des Papes, which dates from the 14th century. He was there to see a millennium-themed art exhibition, featuring the likes of a Bill Viola installation and a dance performance from Pina Bausch. All of this took place in what is the biggest medieval structure in Europe, a onetime seat of Western Christianity, but which is now better known as a UNESCO site (celebrating its 30th anniversary of that status this year) and home for many decades to a yearly experimental theater festival.
Ghesquière was captivated by the place, which isn't exactly surprising: Magical things tend to happen in his mind when history, culture, and his own particular brand of creativity and intellectual curiosity collide. Now, some 25 years later, here he is, back in town, with his Louis Vuitton 2026 cruise collection: a fantastic 45-look show which offered a masterly meditation on everything from decorative ancient religious tracts to glammy rock stars, medieval heraldic costuming to the myth of Excalibur , with references galore to King Arthur and the Lady of the Lake. I'd have loved to have asked Ghesquière if he thought Nicholas Clay in the 1981 Excalibur movie was as hot as I did, but I managed to hold back. What I do know is this: That the Bausch performance helped him envisage how to show this cruise collection.
'I wanted to put the audience on stage,' Ghesquière said at a pre-show preview. 'This idea of an audience seeing everything from the point of view of the performers. The places I have shown the cruise in the past, like Kyoto, usually have a personal connection,' he went on to say. 'It's rare I ever find a location from scouting. It's always personal, then it goes through this twisted way of mine thinking about fashion [laughs]. When [famed French actor and theater director] Jean Vilar came here in 1947 to perform, he said [of Palais des Papes], 'it's impossible to do theater here, so let's do theater here!' And I love that! I'm not saying it's impossible to do fashion here, but it's the first time that they've done anything like this.'
Ghesquière, it has to be said, is no stranger to making the impossible possible. It has rather been a hallmark of his time at the maison for the last 10-plus years: The elevation of the everyday via couture-level artisanal craft and technological experimentation melded into clothes which are deeply rooted in reality; maybe the most inventive and idiosyncratic notion of reality, but a reality nonetheless. It's a wardrobe of leather jackets, artisanal knits, kicky short skirts, flowing dresses, and accessories with plenty of attitude, like this cruise's lavishly embroidered flat peep-toe boots, and the Alma handbag in striped bands of exotic leathers or (be still my beating heart, because this was my personal favorite) with scrolling flowers taken from religious manuscripts dating from the Middle Ages.
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