French luxury label Louis Vuitton as led by designer Nicolas Ghesquière went all out for its resort 2018 runway, presenting for the first time in Japan, where the label created a breathtaking backdrop set in Kyoto, Japan. The collection was shown at Miho Museum, a venue located on a mountaintop and designed by architect I.M. Pei, who also designed the Louvre pyramid in Paris.
The collection honored its location through multiple call outs of traditional Japanese beauty, fashion and art references, including kabuki-inspired makeup, plus fabrics and graphics inspired by samurai armor and kimonos. As well, Ghesquière tapped Japanese designer Kansaï Yamamoto to create graphics that were featured on several items, including some bags.
While there was a lot of focus around the setting and the clothing, Louis Vuitton is in large part a bag company and there were plenty of them shown on the runway. While just three years ago there were discussions around logo fatigue and its disappearance from the runway, the brand’s all-over monogram and damier print is very much back in demand and Louis Vuitton embraced the trend with multiple logo bags.
Removing all the trappings and taken as a whole, the collection was pretty average. The fashion overall was patchy with the good balanced by the underwhelming; same goes for the bags. That said, the luxury space and LV are in a happy place at the moment, and thus the focus of presentations during this period is more about creating an auspicious presentation and sending a message to a target demographic (in this case Asia).
Check out our favorite looks below:
