MANIFESTO

#61

ART NOW

Fantastical Reveries

2021.07.01

Louis Vuitton Cruise 2022
by MUSE

Nicolas Ghesquière’s vision creates a bridge between East and West in a futuristic Paris.

The fashion house’s creative director, Nicolas Ghesquière, presents the Cruise 2022 collection on the catwalk and chooses the city of Cergy-Pontoise as the location. Cergy-Pontoise was born from the union of two cities and in 1980 Dani Karavan, an Israeli artist, built the Axe Majeur, a monumental sculpture that stretches for three kilometres, starting from Place de la Concorde, crossing the Champs Elysées and arriving at the Défense.

I decided to show the collection on Karavan’s Axe Majeur while I was in California designing the collection. In a way, I thought that utopian architecture could build a futuristic landscape on our doorstep.

– Nicolas Ghesquière

The utopian, modernist installation creates an environment where space and time relate to the natural elements of water, light, wind, sand, concrete, stone and steel, creating a suspended moment, an ideal. The architecture symbolises the union between the city centre and the satellite suburbs. Based on this geographical connection, the show acts as a bridge combining Eastern and Western aesthetics in a way that cancels out differences in the name of accepting diversity. Ghesquière does this by using the shapes and volumes of clothes, putting a wide, short cape over a miniskirt or fluttering a pleated caftan over a leather skirt.
The collection continues with metallic coats with varnish pockets and trapeze dresses worn with boots, there are flouncy cocktail dresses made of coloured neoprene, there are illustrations reminiscent of 1970s sci-fi comics. The dense details and bold shapes of the collection express its premise of imagining horizons without boundaries. Like the uniforms of a band, the collection is presented in an energetic and joyful parade.
A set of proud gazes advance straight ahead. They are the image of harmony in an environment that is so near and yet so far, without borders and open to adventure.

RIVE DROITE

SAINT LAURENT BY
VANESSA BEECROFT

2023.02.15

Saint Laurent invites Vanessa Beecroft to photograph the Spring 23 collection: a selection of 14 polaroids is on display at Rive Droite stores in Paris and Los Angeles. 

COLLECTION

Gucci Après-Ski

2022.12.15

The Maison presents the new Gucci Après-Ski collection, a selection of garments designed for a luxurious and refined high-altitude season told through a retro campaign inspired by the relaxed atmosphere of winter holidays.

JACQUEMUS

"LE RAPHIA"

2022.12.13

Under a relentless rain of raffia, that breaks in like a summer storm, Jacquemus presents its new Spring Summer 2023 collection, titled “Le Raphia”. The natural fiber becomes the undisputed star moving from its raw essence to being extremely luxurious.

CELINE

Age of Indieness

2022.12.12

Age of Indieness spotlights an aesthetic raised from the indie-sleaze era of the 1990s and early 2000s, Celine’s Winter 2023 collection, designed by Hedi Slimane, walk the catwalk at the Wiltern Theatre in the heart of Los Angeles.

Fashion

Chanel
Métiers d’Art

2022.12.09

The Chanel Métiers d’Art 2022/23 collection, presented under the artistic direction of Virginie Viard, parades at the Palais de Justice in Dakar, capital of Senegal. The show is unique in terms of creativity, and a tribute to the savoir-faire of the place.