Cruise 2022: Shows To Let The Mind Wander
From Louis Vuitton’s futuristic romp to Chanel’s punk in Provence, the Cruise season of blockbuster shows is back.
By Gordon Ng,
The shows for the Cruise collections have a special place in the modern fashion calendar. Though these are meant to be trans-seasonal ranges that stay on boutique shelves a little longer, the shows themselves have come to stand for escapism. Big brands, like the ones that presented runway shows this year, set aside resources to show these collections in exciting, alternative locales.
Though the pandemic has put a stopper on travel, these shows – set closer to home, in spots like Provence and a former quarry outside of Paris – offered a glimmer of hope. Things might not be, exactly, back to business as usual, but fashion is still a way to dream and to let the mind wander.
Like great works of film or television, these shows are blockbusters of distraction and entertainment. Here are the best so far.
Virginie Viard’s inspiration for this Chanel Metiers d’Art show – its version of a Cruise collection – was the modernist filmmaker Jean Cocteau, a close friend of Gabriella Chanel.
A scene from one of his films in particular, of a horse’s head in a shadowed silhouette, made Viard think about the graphic strengths of black on white. That took this Chanel show to the Carrieres de Lumieres, a former quarry turned art and exhibition space in Provence.
To capture that idea of graphic black and white, Viard designed a collection that juxtaposed prettiness with a punk attitude. Think crisp whites of shirting fabrics against the deep blacks of velvet and leather. “I wanted something quite rock,” said Viard in press notes about her inspiration. “Lots of fringes, in leather, beads and sequins,” she elaborated, that would echo “the extreme modernity of Cocteau’s film.”
Maybe it’s the energy of the Olympic Games this year, but the Cruise collection that Dior showed in Athens at the Panathenaic Stadium felt very of-the-moment.
The inspiration that the brand cites is a series of photographs taken in 1951 of Monsieur Dior’s haute couture near the Parthenon. Regardless, the show being staged in the home of the modern Olympics – the first was held in that very stadium in 1896 – was heavily symbolic.
As for the fashion itself: Greek classicism is nothing new to Maria Grazia Chiuri, who has firmly established herself as the designer par excellence of ethereal pleated dresses with a goddess-like quality. Here, the house played up the draped peplos silhouette with modern twists, paired with sneakers that offset the traditional with the sporty.
The Cruise shows by Louis Vuitton artistic director Nicolas Ghesquiere have always sought out architectural masterpieces as settings. The Niteroi Contemporary Art Museum in Rio de Janeiro, and the Miho Museum in Kyoto, for example.
The brand has even made a routine of showing at the Louvre in Paris for its main season’s shows. This year, the brand took a trip just outside of Paris to Axe Majeur in the town of Cergy-Pontoise.
The Axe Majeur inspired Louis Vuitton to create a joyful collection of ready-to-wear. According to show notes, the key ideas were optimism, joyful colour, positivity, advancing ahead, and a sense of adventure. That meant looks with Ghesquiere’s signature dose of retro-futurism: think space cowboy boots meets neoclassical military silhouettes.
Youth and rebellion – those evergreen qualities were on Givenchy creative director Matthew Williams’ mind for this Cruise 2022 collection. The house chose to stage their show in a disused and abandoned railway yard in Paris that looked the epitome of countercultural grunge.
Some of the key ideas in this collection: the aesthetics of 90s grunge and graffiti – see the boots and rucksacks, as well as prints done in collaboration with the airbrush artist Chito. The Chito collaboration is, in fact, already available now as a capsule collection.