Paris | Ode to youth at Louis Vuitton

(Paris) Tie, floating pants, bomber jacket or overalls: the woman at Louis Vuitton is an eternal teenager in the fall-winter 2022 collection, which paraded at the Musée d’Orsay on Monday.

In the middle of the sculptures of the Grand gallery, they advance in sneakers, hair in the wind.

Wide gray striped pants decorated with large pearls, white shirt, floral tie, oversized chocolate jacket and flat shoes: the tone is set from the first pass.

For Nicolas Ghesquière, designer of Louis Vuitton’s women’s collections, it is a question of “rediscovering the instinct of non-conformist clothing”.

Here a big red sweater tied like a belt over a long romantic dress that bares the shoulders. There, dungarees over wide sweaters with the same or contrasting patterns and imposing bracelets in irregular shapes.

A wide, draped gray trouser suit is worn with a tie of the same color with another oversized jacket over it.

Portraits on dresses are taken from images of British fashion photographer David Sims from the 90s.

A black and white t-shirt dress with portraits is worn over floral pants and open-toed loafers, in an aesthetic that mixes colors, prints and textures that seem incompatible at first sight.

“This collection is dedicated to youth, hoping that it can keep the unresolved poetry of adolescence as a perfect garment,” writes the designer in the note of intent for the show.

The last look (as important as the first in a runway), a wide striped t-shirt over a flowing floral dress in blue and yellow, the colors of the Ukrainian flag, is a subtle way to put the runway in the geopolitical context.

Last week, the house announced it had donated 1 million euros ($1.4 million) to help children affected by Russia’s war in Ukraine.

At the exit of the Musée d’Orsay, in the crowd of onlookers watching for the arrival of stars or photographing street looks, a man holds up a poster thanking “the Fashion Week houses that support Ukraine, especially Balenciaga” .

Demna, the Georgian designer of Balenciaga and himself a refugee from a war with Russia, paid a vibrant tribute to Ukraine on Sunday with a poem recited in Ukrainian during the parade, t-shirts in the colors of Ukraine placed on each seat and a note explaining that fashion lost “its right to exist” during the war.