This slideshow includes 11 images from a second showing of this collection in Aranya, China on September 16, 2022.
The marching band of Florida A&M University, out of Tallahassee. A procession of athletic French LV flag wavers. And Kendrick Lamar in his crown of thorns, sending his lyrical incantation to the absent-presence of Virgil Abloh from his seat beside a conceptual Yellow Brick Road runway which swooped around a courtyard of the Louvre: “Virgil, how many miles away?”
If this was Louis Vuitton’s final celebration of Abloh and his legacy— the first collection and show to have been seen through wholly without him—then the brand’s powers that be, and all the people who worked for Abloh, did a spectacular all-round job. It wasn’t at all mournful or—worse—forcedly upbeat. Rather, it was a collective collection, designed by the people who worked all the long hours with him, cementing the profound and irrevocable social change that Abloh succeeded in normalizing at the very top of the fashion establishment.
Behind it was the concept of play—which tracks back to what Abloh once described as “the untainted vision of a child, not yet spoiled by societal programming.” Free play is where he believed creativity happens. As a multi-disciplinarian and collaborator across so many fields and across continents—DJ-ing, graphic design, furniture design, animation, music, film, museum curation, and more—he recognized no boundaries.
The team that had worked with him at LV learned from all those “everything is possible” lessons and ran with them. Amidst a humongous set built to mimic a magnified kid’s train set, and surrounded by huge inflatable balls, they tenderly utilized the childhood codes Abloh played with. Paper planes landed all over a black suit as a kind of 3-D embroidery. Folded ‘paper’ hats were reproduced in luxurious white leather. A coat was decorated with the contents of a toolbox, scissors and all. The zig-zaggy pinked hems of shirts and jackets winked towards kids’ craft kits. The LV flower symbol was hand-crocheted in multicolored wool all up the sleeves of a denim jacket.
If this sounds naive, that’s giving the wrong impression. If anything, Abloh’s team pulled out all the stops, proving their knowledge of the luxurious, couture-grade techniques Louis Vuitton is capable of. There were white leather bomber jackets and a coat with grand molded 18th-century French motifs, a rich array of flower and thistle embroideries and jacquards, and a finale of sparkling sequined French Impressionist fields of poppies and wild flowers.
At the end, the studio team—Abloh’s creative army—followed the marching band to wave goodbye to an era that has been transformative, both for them and for the image of what Louis Vuitton can stand for on the global stage. Tomorrow is another day; there will surely be an announcement of the next creative director soon. Big shoes to fill. But this is certain, there can be no turning back on the wealth of equality and openness that Virgil Abloh brought to this industry.
