The collection is an ode to sand, reimagined by the Maison to pieces that bring childhood dreams and imagination into shapes of reality.
Related: “Fall In Love” With Louis Vuitton Men’s Spring Summer 2023 Preludes
As children, the thought of building sand castles by the beach got us excited. We marvel at the feeling of the sand on falling from our fingertips as we act like gods forming figures with our hands. Unknowingly, these experiences herald a message that we realize as we grow older—the way we shape our paths is in our hands.
Besides this, the hearts of kids know no dichotomy and judgment, but creativity, collaboration, and community. And with this idea, Louis Vuitton brings the Spring Summer 2023 Men’s Collection to Aranya, China from its first unveiling last June in Paris, France.
A Childlike Experience
The exhibition preludes with Mirage, a cinematic project by Jia Zhangke and Wei Shujun, that showcase a child’s eye for discovery and dreaming. Both Zhangke and Shujun also directed the main show.
Following the short film, Beijing-based instrumental band Sleeping Dogs usher the arrival of the collection on the runway. The 320-meter runway depicts sandlike-figures that portray memories of playing by the shore—block buildings and giant humans with body parts buried in the sand.
The collection anchors its coherence to a look within history—the past of the brand and a collective one of childhood that involves motifs of floral elements, paper planes, beaded accessories, building blocks, cartoon prints, playdough tones and textures, and craft embellishments.
A Whimsical Field
The Louis Vuitton Studio Prêt-à-Porter Homme particularly injects French Romanticism with the flowers as printed, weaved, or embroidered in the pieces. The flora feature is a nod to Louis Vuitton’s ancestral home in Asnières where bouquets of thistles are ever present. The inclusion of flowers in the collection consequently symbolizes the whimsical air of youth—blooming with ideas and blossoming from hope and desire.
A Youthful Approach
On the other hand, devices of our childhood are reinterpreted into prints and pigments on the clothes and accessories from this collection—truly evoking a hint of nostalgia for dreaming big as kids. From these, scissors, tweezers, and clamps are transformed into pendants that evoke a sense of evolution from toys to actual tools used in the Maison. They, too, are emblems of Louis Vuitton’s savoir-faire—keeping the tradition of developing fabrics, of hand-embroideries, hand-beading, hand-crocheting, Shiburi tie-dye, and intricate leather moulding; and also welcoming the ingenuity of static electricity fabrics and the genuine and 3D-printed loudspeakers used in the SpeakerMan backpacks.
A Juvenile Dream
Virgil Abloh—the late director of Louis Vuitton’s Menswear Collection—has always advocated for inclusivity and acted on his vision of a world brimming with opportunities for everyone. His appreciation for artistic expression has let him see eye-to-eye with the artistic community of Aranya—a destination for bringing art to life with art exhibitions, music festivals, and landmark architectures.
As Louis Vuitton continues Abloh’s legacy, the Maison extended show invitations to 100 young individuals from Aranya’s local communities. During the show, they donned rainbow-dyed shirts with the date “June 21 2018″—the late director’s first show for Louis Vuitton.
Louis Vuitton is located at Greenbelt 3 and The Shoppes at Solaire
