The fact that Ghesquiere shows so many collections per year and we still for the majority see product on display in the stores that has little to do with the two main runway shows plays a large reason why I’m not interested in his Vuitton as much as I had been in his Balenciaga. It’s a similar thing with the store design, the menswear being done by another designer and the fact that the products probably selling the most at this house are ones that are not attributed to any of their creative directors.
As one of the industry‘s most visionary creators still working, it would have only befitted him to be at a place where he has creative control over every little detail of brand, similar to when Hedi took on Saint Laurent - And yet, the largest brands existing today (Dior, Vuitton and Chanel) do not provide that much influence to their creative directors.
I must say that what has been very surprising for me was to not see some silhouettes reminiscent from his early collections at Vuitton, precisely because what the « mass » buys is still the A-line silhouettes from those first seasons.
I think it can be frustrating to have a great designer who, after years of being the creative director of an entire house, is just now the creative director of a department in which the clothes themselves represent a small (even if bigger than a lot of brands) part of the whole thing.
I absolutely loved the vision Nicolas had for Balenciaga beyond the clothes. The stores designed by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, the weird locations, the fragrance they launched, the shoes by Pierre Hardy. It was a moment in time.
I don’t think Nicolas will ever allow himself to give that much of himself to a house that is not his.
I have continued to buy his RTW for Vuitton. Of course I know which stores carries the stuff I’m interested in but I think his work for Vuitton needs to be separated from his work for Balenciaga.
We all loved Marc for Vuitton but his clothes were barely produced. I think it was produced in smaller quantities. They produced the shoes and bags in limited edition and what was in stores was what Julie de Libran and Peter Copping did…
But somehow we only had that amazing image of the runway shows.
I’m glad that Nicolas is at Vuitton, even more in this climate. The fact that the CD of the most profitable luxury house in the world is able to present this is necessary. We can’t only rely on MGC, Virginie Viard, Sabato De Sarno.
Creativity still matters. I love that sometimes I don’t like his work because it’s too weird. I don’t think I’ve ever found his work boring.
And in some weird ways, even if I have been told that the super-rich loves those very expensive pieces, I think there are enough pieces that would be easily translated in stores.
