Louis Vuitton and The Row

Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photos: Courtesy of Louis Vuitton, The Row, Marine Serre

Five years ago, Nicolas Ghesquière staged an extraordinary show for Louis Vuitton at the Louvre. It posed the question: What would happen if the past could look at us? He invited 200 choral singers, arranged on risers, to become characters in a living tableaux against the back wall, and he asked the costumer Milena Canonero to dress them in styles spanning the 15th century to the 1950s. They behaved like portraits come to life while singing the whole time. Meanwhile, the models tread the wooden floor in clothes that subtly referenced the past.

There was some talk of COVID-19 at the shows, but mostly we were just tired of being abroad for so long. Within a couple of weeks, of course, France would be under lockdown, like other countries, and it wouldn’t open its borders again until the early summer of 2021.

On Monday night, as another runway season lurched to a close, Ghesquière held his Vuitton women’s show in a mid-19th building adjacent to the Gare du Nord train station. It was a beautiful setting with a partial view of the façade and its tall windows. Because the area was relatively confined, there was seating for only around 350 guests, in contrast to the 800 or more people Vuitton usually invites. For a brand founded on travel trunks, a railway station makes sense. Marc Jacobs, when he was Vuitton’s creative director, once did a show that featured an actual vintage train. In the 19th century, there were two types of structures that characterized the age, its wealth and progress: railway terminals and department stores. LVMH, which owns Vuitton as well as the Bon Marché, is still heavily involved in the latter.

But Ghesquière’s purpose was somewhat different. I spoke to him after the ritual picture-taking with Bernard Arnault, the chairman of LVMH, and members of the Arnault family, various executives, and his mother. After a long way, celebrities and VICs began piling into the dark-paneled room, which looked fit for a railroad baron. I had ducked up the stairs to Ghesquière’s room with some executives, skirting the security guards. Otherwise, it might have been a long wait for that particular connection.

“Well,” he explained, “the platform of a train station is where people meet, where people separate, where people reunite. Where people go together as a group, and we need to feel that right now, that collective universal feeling of being together.” The collection also made nods to various movies, namely Some Like It Hot (the LV-monogrammed violin cases that some models carried; I guess Jack Lemmon’s bass-fiddle case, with bullet holes, is too big and literal), Casablanca (a neat and very chic trench coat in faded olive and some capacious black fedoras), Brief Encounter (perhaps some suits), Harry Potter, and the 2005 movie L’Amour aux Trousses.

From left: Photo: Courtesy of Louis VuittonPhoto: Courtesy of Louis Vuitton

From top: Photo: Courtesy of Louis VuittonPhoto: Courtesy of Louis Vuitton

Most people probably don’t share Ghesquière’s feelings about train travel. But perhaps what matters is that the clothes imparted a sense of eclectic modern comfort — not stale luxury trappings — and realistic characters, like a businesswoman or a suburban mom in her stiff khaki poncho, a young artist in her snug brown waxed-cotton coat with bold floral leggings, a bourgeois student in her tailored jeans and poplin windbreaker, or a fashion girl in a black vintage-looking coat and leather turban from the 1920s (shades of Murder on the Orient Express).

From left: Photo: Courtesy of Louis VuittonPhoto: Courtesy of Louis Vuitton

From top: Photo: Courtesy of Louis VuittonPhoto: Courtesy of Louis Vuitton

When I looked back at the clothes in the 2020 show, a difference now is far fewer decorative details and technical fabrics and a greater sense of pragmatism. And despite Ghesquière’s rhetoric of togetherness, possibly less joie de vivre.

Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen finally released photos of The Row’s latest offering, shown last week, and though the images are maddeningly out of focus for us mortals who prefer clarity, their haziness does go hand in hand with the privacy their clothes more and more project.

Writers talk about the Olsens’ expensive taste and (sort of) minimalist style, but their aim in both their fashion and their public profiles is to be, it seems, virtually invisible. Coat collars shield faces. Hands disappear into pockets. Legs are modestly covered in tights. And the models didn’t wear shoes during the show, on plush carpet, because, in a sense, they were at home. Illusion or not, the Olsens pulled all this off very well.

From left: Photo: Courtesy of The RowPhoto: Courtesy of The Row

From top: Photo: Courtesy of The RowPhoto: Courtesy of The Row

I found three aspects of the show inspiring — their patrician use of pale blue (a poplin men’s-style shirt) against the grays and light khakis; the oddball addition of a full-length apron skirt in khaki drill, with a white slip or shirt tail partially peeking out; and the face-framing effect, the modesty, of black jersey caps that resemble snoods. Someone, I suspect, is studying the same look in old fashion photos or paintings of women.

From left: Photo: Courtesy of The RowPhoto: Courtesy of The Row

From top: Photo: Courtesy of The RowPhoto: Courtesy of The Row

Other independent female designers also made strong impressions this season. Stephanie Danan of Co, who relocated her California studio to Europe last year, offers a rich sportswear sensibility unaffected by trends. It’s not old-fashioned, exactly, but it’s assured without being quiet and is decidedly chic. Though her fabrics are always good, Danan has added some spark with coats and jackets in leopard-print pony and liquid separates in a mottled gold velvet.

From left: Photo: Courtesy of Co/ Photo: Courtesy of Co/

From top: Photo: Courtesy of Co/ … more
From top: Photo: Courtesy of Co/ Photo: Courtesy of Co/

Marine Serre started as a maverick designer introducing people to upcycled goods and sometimes a political or social message. She’s now refined her style, though, to me, her designs work best when she brings her knack for streetwear to luxury. Too polished, and her clothes look like other people’s. Among her better designs were a dark, sweeping coat with a wide white collar in what looked like starched antique linen and a minidress entirely made of old metal watch bands set on the bias.

From left: Photo: Courtesy of Marine SerrePhoto: Courtesy of Marine Serre

From top: Photo: Courtesy of Marine SerrePhoto: Courtesy of Marine Serre

I saw Grace Wales Bonner’s collection in London but waited till she released images to write about it. Her appreciation for “clothing across time,” as she put it, resulted in a feeling for the flair of women captured in the pages of Jet and Ebony magazines in the ’70s and ’80s. Yet, whatever her sources, Wales Bonner relies on her pragmatism, a femininity that is more tough than chic. This season, she used a black leather that feels almost oily for a fitted sleeveless dress with an A-line skirt and a bomber with a thick Mongolian fleece collar. “I’m leaning into a toughness,” said the designer, known for her retro sports looks and tailoring. Even a beautifully simple tunic dress in navy satin with loose black macrame fringe on the sleeves and hem conveys a disdain for too much glamour. Grace Wales Bonner knows how much is just enough.

From left: Photo: Courtesy of Grace Wales BonnerPhoto: Courtesy of Grace Wales Bonner

From top: Photo: Courtesy of Grace Wales BonnerPhoto: Courtesy of Grace Wales Bonner

Loewe put on a presentation in a Paris mansion — a former home of Karl Lagerfeld now used for events — without its creative director, Jonathan Anderson, though he was involved with everything. The brand’s owner, LVMH, has not yet announced Anderson’s next role. The collection, and the way it was presented, was a treat, in part because you could see the stuff up close and touch it, and in part because the displays conveyed Loewe’s wit under Anderson. His studio collaborated with the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation for coats and skirts in vibrant, artistic weaves and some crinkled silk tank dresses. They appeared as round puddles on the floor, but I saw similar ones hanging in a back closet. They’re amazing. Loewe plans to reproduce them.

The collection was loaded with the craft elements that Anderson has turned into high fashion, including a quartet of draped dresses made of strands of fine pebbled cord, cardigans in an almost molded cable stitch, and a kind of egg basket in different bright colors finished with leather flowers.