Louis Vuitton's teenage volatility

All week in Paris hundreds of kids stood outside concerts yelling at the top of their voices about celebrities, especially they were crazy about TikTokers, which the adult audience won't even recognize. The world continues to change and adapt, as the famous clock at the Musée d'Orsay reminded us today at Louis Vuitton, and children are creating a new culture.

Time has been a subtext for Nicolas Ghesquière from the very beginning of his work at Louis Vuitton. This show was tied not so much to a certain era, but to a time frame: youth. The volatility and beautiful impermanence of adolescence. He evoked this state most directly through many photographs of David Sims. The photographer came of age in the 1990s and photographed his peers with a grit that would eventually become the style of the period. By applying and embroidering Sims images onto jacquard floral print polo shirts, some of that edgy spirit has seeped through here.

Ghesquière complemented evening dresses with rugby-style sports shirts or thick sweaters with ties at the waist. It was the most adorable part of the show, reminiscent of how a teenage girl can customize her boyfriend's outfit. He also played with androgynous cuts, often oversized. Other silhouettes looked to be borrowed from Ghesquière's more extravagant previous collection, only here the shape was mixed with softer embroidered jersey and tweed for a more casual look. “Freedom is everything,” he wrote, “without directive or obstacles.”

Youth, like freedom, is fleeting. Ghesquière’s showed it different. Today, much depends on children, but in young people he sees "inspiring idealism, hope for the future and for a better world."