(Paris) Pop superstar Rosalia set the Louis Vuitton fashion show on fire in Paris on Thursday in a colorful child’s apartment setting, stealing the show from the men’s collection made by the studios, for lack of a successor to Virgil Abloh who died at the end of 2021 .
Like a ghost, in down jacket and pants oversizedshe wandered around the rooms before getting on the roof of a car — an allusion to her album Motomami — and begin his performance.
The Spanish artist threaded his way through models chaotically parading through this installation, singing, dancing or jumping on a bed.
The decor of the parade, in the square courtyard of the Louvre, evoked the apartment of a black child, who appeared in a video at the start of the show. A boy who dreams of traveling and creating.
PHOTO EMMANUEL DUNAND, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Like a ghost, in down jacket and pants oversizedRosalia strolled through the rooms before getting on the roof of a car — an allusion to her album Motomami — and begin his performance.
Louis Vuitton is orphaned by its artistic director of men’s collections, the American Virgil Abloh, one of the few black luxury designers, who died in November 2021 and who has still not been replaced.
Models passed and doodled on the stage walls, while Rosalia alternated fragments of Motomamiwhich won him the Latin Grammy for Best Album last year, featuring music by other performers.
With a mixture of flamenco, rap and pop, the 30-year-old Catalan singer is one of the most popular in the world and is known for her taste for other artistic fields such as fashion or cinema.
Collective
PHOTO EMMANUEL DUNAND, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Like the staging of the parade, the collection was very rich and notably presented casual suits in all shades of gray or burgundy.
In this multidisciplinary spirit, which was dear to Virgil Abloh, Louis Vuitton entrusted the collection this season to a collective of creatives.
The filmmakers Michel and Olivier Gondry, the stylist Ibrahim Kamara, recently appointed head of the Off-White collections, or the founder of the KidSuper brand, Colm Dillane were among them.
For the third time since his death, several people involved in the preparation of this show came out to greet the public at the end of the parade.
Like the staging of the show, the collection was very rich: casual suits in all shades of gray or burgundy, dot prints (dots) developed in collaboration with Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, bomber jackets, sparkling outfits …
The bags and suitcases seemed stuffed, some overflowing with paper.
On the feet, there were sneakers with large futuristic soles and, on the head, hybrid headgear between cap and balaclava, hats and scarves or aviator helmets.
Virgil Abloh celebrated
PHOTO EMMANUEL DUNAND, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
On the head, there were hybrid head coverings between cap and balaclava, hats and scarves or aviator helmets.
These are the studios that design the Louis Vuitton men’s collections after the death of Virgil Abloh, a committed black designer who breathed a wind of streetwearrap and NBA culture at the historic French house of the LVMH group.
“Abloh shone a very strong spotlight on the world of Vuitton men streetwearyoung, African-American, in his cultural approach”, said to AFP in December Arnaud Cadart, portfolio manager at the management company Flornoy Ferri.
“The studios are very “staffed”, they operate in this spirit of Virgil Abloh. […] Vuitton can afford to continue on this path until there is a challenger who upsets them”.
“They do not urgently need someone” to replace him, argues Benjamin Simmenauer, professor at the French Fashion Institute.
“We haven’t forgotten Virgil Abloh, we continue to celebrate him, which is rare in the world of fashion where everything goes extremely fast,” he concludes.