Louis Vuitton is, of course, renowned for being a luxury travel house. The brand was originally known for timeless trunks , monogrammed delights, leather goods - a uniform for explorers. With this in mind, you can only commend Nicolas Ghesquière for this season's deep-exploration into the house codes. Yes, this collection called upon a passion for travel as a reference, but not to any holiday destination you've visited...
Walking into the Louis Vuitton space was like walking into a scene from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Lights, mirrors, gloss, tunnels - you could visualise HAL 9000 giving instructions, or an Ex Machina scene playing out down the corridor. It was a science-fiction spectacle and so were the clothes. These were garments for the intergalactic explorer, no longer satisfied with packing their Louis Vuitton trunk for Paris - these customers are after future-proof fashion for space travel.
Prints were exceptional; cliché rockets much like those of a child's bedroom, Star Wars landscapes and rainbows that mimicked Pink Floyd's Prism of Light crept and span out from light Bermuda shorts, and truly remarkable jackets with drawstring bishop sleeves that gathered and pooled as if giant wrinkles or Saturn's rings. Sci-fi fashion has a tendency to be dark, a little ominous, a bit 'hunker down for the future' - the music certainly imbued that mood - but Ghesquière had cleverly utilised eighties pattern and print to lighten the atmosphere. Jazzy neons, that can best be described as patterns from the Saved by the Bell intro sequence, were wrapped on short-dresses with silver glitter sleeves creating a retro-futurism.
There were other eighties references here too; big outlandish hair, power-shoulders, space-age silver disc dresses and floral unitards all added comedic nods within this display of nomadic fashion. It's interesting to hark back to this era, the eighties were a time of great innovation in the world of travel and tech, therefore to reference both the joy and technophobia of the time is pure brilliance. More joy was found in the mini flying saucer bags in both metallic and traditional logo - the perfect answer to today's mini-bag obsession.
Truly breathtaking moments came in the form of leather coats and cloche hats that appeared in pastels, white and hints of black, as if they were PAN AM uniforms for the Year 3000. The white coat was in fact made of crushed rubber. Suiting too was spectacular, a conquering of the silhouette with some of the most brilliant casting this season. There is always a risk when trying to capture future fashion, it can so easily turn into the naff or the gimmicky. For S/S 19, Ghesquiere had created wonder and personality that was instantly marvellous.
