IT’S A DATE: It’s never too early to start planning for 2023’s destination cruise shows.
Nicolas Ghesquière has already fixed a date for Louis Vuitton’s: May 24. Other details are still under wraps, including the geographic location and venue.
Artistic director of women’s collections at Vuitton since 2013, Ghesquière typically selects an architectural marvel as a transporting backdrop for Vuitton’s cruise displays.
For the resort 2023 collection, he chose the Salk Institute in San Diego, a clifftop research facility that boasts a slim reflecting pool running between two identical rows of Brutalist buildings, framing breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean.
Over the years, Vuitton cruise shows have taken place at the groovy Bob Hope Estate by John Lautner in Palm Springs, California; Brazil’s otherworldly MAC Niterói by Oscar Niemeyer; Kyoto’s Miho Museum by Ieoh Ming Pei; the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul de Vence by Josep Lluís Sert, and the TWA Flight Center at JFK Airport in New York by Eero Saarinen.
Cruise represents a key delivery for luxury brands as the collections have a long selling window straddling several seasons, and often dedicated campaigns and extra distribution via pop-up stores.
While destination shows were scuttled during the coronavirus pandemic, they came roaring back last year when Chanel headed to Monaco, Dior to Seville, Max Mara to Lisbon and Gucci to Puglia, to name a few.
Vuitton usually unveils its spring and fall womenswear and menswear collections in Paris, but it has also staged “spinoff shows” as far afield as Bangkok, Miami, Shanghai and Aranya, China.
Reports /TrainViral/
