We all know that the world outside of France is obsessed with the intricacies of French women’s lives. Where do they shop? How do they keep in shape while eating so much butter? How many Breton tops do they own? What mascara do they wear? DO THEY EVEN WEAR MASCARA? French style — which usually means Parisian style — is one of the country’s biggest cultural exports. There are endless articles, beauty tutorials, books, even a feature-length documentary, that expound on those questions. Louis Vuitton’s very French artistic director Nicolas Ghesquière, who has somewhat defined the very image of French women during his illustrious career, began designing his latest collection with the question in mind, too.
“What is French style?” he asked himself and his studio of international designers. “The question itself is an an enigma, kindling endless fascination,” his show notes pondered. “An irresolute fashion residing above an oxymoronic foundation of audauctious tradition. “French allure is a trompe l’oeil. The French touch never fails to captivate.”
Indeed! Nicolas chose to return the Musée d’Orsay for his show, where the gilded decor was contrasted by a black installation designed by Philippe Parreno and James Chinlun, reproducing a cobbled Paris street, complete with police sirens, barking dogs, click-clacking heels, and cars navigating wet pavements (all courtesy of the sound designer Nicolas Becker). It all pointed to the street, setting the scene for a collection defined by eclectic individualism; different French women in different neighbourhoods, going about their different lives. It seemed to dispel any hackneyed ideas about Gallic girls. French women are not a monolith, you know! They cannot be reduced to a Buzzfeed article or a Pinterest mood board!
Some of the pieces looked more like what French style could look like if the country had a colony on Mars. Sci-fi shapes, angular and geometric, defined the dramatic collards bustiers of a few dresses, as well as the tubular sleeves on one LBD, and the light-up LED Venetian masks that were peppered throughout the collection. Elsewhere, there were more familiar references to the present-day Le Parisienne: a belted round-shouldered tweed coat over lipstick-red leather trousers; a cosy round-shoulders knit belted at the waist and worn with bare legs and a chunky scarf; Tricolore-coloured biker gloves; a leather-trimmed grey wool foulard wrapped around the neck; plenty of cigarette-thin pants, most of which came slashed at the knee, and oversized Herringbone jackets that most French women would throw over a pair of Levi’s.
Louis Vuitton is a global megabrand, with travel at its heart, so it’s fair to say that this vision of Frenchness is one that anyone can get on board with. After all, the ambassadors of the house in the audience ranged from Serena Williams to Chloe Grace Moretz, Alicia Vikander to Sophie Turner, Pharrell to Sonam Kapoor. None of these people are French, but they embody the designer’s vision of Frenchness, which perhaps is more of an attitude than a look. To go back to the question that Nicolas set out to answer — ‘What is French style? — by the looks of this collection, the answer remains: ‘je ne sais quois’.
Credits
Images courtesy of Spotlight.