December 25, 2014 |
There’s an odd disconnect when you come to Monte Carlo. Not that it’s a locale I frequent much. I’m not Dame Shirley Bassey, nor the autonomous, animated Volkswagen Beetle Herbie, who famously went there on celluloid in 1977. I did arrive a week before the Grand Prix, though, with many of the bollards and blockages in place to carve the race’s circuitous path through the spaghetti-narrow city streets.
Anyway, the disconnect didn’t come from me being there as such. It came from most of the people already there. Monaco is a tax haven, an enclave populated by a clutch of the world’s wealthiest people. Its population stands at just 36,000, although its diminutive size (less than a square mile – the second smallest land mass of a principality in the world) means that even that minute figure assures its place as the most densely populated country on the planet. That much is apparent in Monte Carlo, where the number is much swelled by thronging tourists crowding the streets: some, sophisticated and moneyed, slipstream seamlessly into the flow of the locals. But most are brasher and larger in numbers, clustering outside the Hotel de Paris and the cupolaed casino for photo opportunities next to rosters of racing cars worth multiple millions, as opposed to the sites of Monte Carlo itself.
The disconnect, then, is that money is the site – or rather sight – to be seen in Monaco. The tourists are coming to gawk at the rich, the same way that fans cluster alongside the red carpet at film premieres, hoping to catch a glimpse of their idols. Why? It beats me. Maybe just to bask in their aura. I feel like people come to Monaco to do that, too, to make believe, to pretend for a moment that they own that pimped-out Porsche, that they live rather than visit the gilded salons of the swish hotels. And, as the subject of such atavistic, voyeuristic attention, I wonder if the Monegasque residents simply sneer or revel in the attention. They are certainly doing nothing to hide their wealth. They carry on buying those cars.
That, of course, is the appeal of Monte Carlo for fashion’s heavyweights. There is not only money to be spent, but money being spent. Both Chanel and Dior have shown pre-collections here, in 2007 and 2013 respectively. This year it was the turn of Louis Vuitton, who chose Monaco as the venue for their cruise 2015 show.
That makes sense, even if you don’t immediately associate Nicolas Ghesquiere’s resolutely quiet and cerebral Vuitton with the Eurotrash flash of the denizens of Jimmy’z nightclub, the only Monaco nightspot that even approaches the idea of branche, where a beer can cost €26 but where a jeroboam of vintage champagne is far more frequently ordered than an Amstel Light. It makes sense because Monaco is filled with the sorts of women who buy cruise collections not as cost-conscious alternatives to ready-to-wear (as of the past few seasons, they’re nothing of the sort), but to actually cruise in. I don’t mean P&O: there’s a bay of yachts parked bumper to bumper (or rather, port to starboard) with one another, varying from zippy racers to fully-fledged gin palaces. Mooring during the Prix is around £12,000 a night, which is no biggie, as it is estimated that one in three residents is a millionaire. Those are pretty good odds for netting customers sauntering past a boutique window. Ghesquiere’s debut autumn/winter collection for Louis Vuitton was unseasonably gracing the windows of their boutique, despite the temperature hovering in the mid-20s.
The season really didn’t matter, just as the season doesn’t really matter when it comes to Ghesquiere’s clothes. Down the coast in Cannes, Julianne Moore wore a Ghesquiere gown adapted from that autumn/winter collection for the city’s film festival. That perfectly illustrates a key fact: these are clothes designed for image, not for climate. That isn’t a reflection of weakness on the part of Ghesquiere, nor a lack of practicality. In fact, it proves what a forward-thinking designer he is. Look at his resolute championing of short for winter, frequently with bared arms alongside the bared legs. Environment is of no concern when it comes to wealthy women wearing these clothes. If he sews it, they will buy. Basic Field of Dreams, in a frock.
In any event, the astoundingly wealthy live entirely climate-controlled lives. That’s why fur sells well in the Middle East, and diaphanous evening dresses will shift even in a New York winter. Between heating and air conditioning, if you’re rich enough, you can wear whatever the hell you want. Which means your demands are more complex than coats for winter and bikinis for summer. Besides which, those traditional fashion seasons are geared purely to the temperate temperatures of Europe and America, ignoring the likes of Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia and Russia – those, along with China, chart as the most important emerging markets in modern luxury.
In the luxury stakes, Monte Carlo is a kind of a no-man’s land. Tourists flock to the city, swarm into their boutiques, peck away at supplies of high-end designer clothing, and then continue on their migration cycle. The Chinese, incidentally, are the world’s biggest tourists, followed by the Russians. Granted, Monaco has the highest GDP worldwide, but it’s not about appealing to the Monegasque elite, but rather the thronging global billionaires who make it their playground.
The Vuitton show was held in palatial splendour – or at least adjacent to it, in a glass cube in the shadow of the Prince’s Palace of Monaco. Apparently, that was the idea not of a prince, but a princess – Charlene, whippet-thin and white-blonde, who presided over proceedings. However, Ghesquiere pulled curtains closed around his collection, cloistering the audience behind thick grey drapes, the same Trianon shade of grey Louis Vuitton originally created their trunks in, incidentally. The floor was a “digital” ocean, an ever-moving, bubbling and morphing seascape devised by the video artist Ange Leccia. I couldn’t help but think of those yachts bobbing in Monte Carlo bay.
When Ghesquiere goes for a theme he plunges in headfirst. Hence seaweedy stuff and anemone patterns wriggled across rippling short skirts, portholes of openwork embroidery punched their way through lame and lace, snorkel masks as oversized sunglasses and silicone-tramlined zips like scuba gear detailed streamlined short dresses and suctioned-in tops. Those harked back to a previous Ghesquiere collection from 2002, much referenced, which fetishised every facet of watersports-wear. At the same time, this collection managed to avoid feeling literal or predictable. It wasn’t watery naiads or Shelley Winters in The Poseidon Adventure.
It was also, truth be told, much more than just a pre-collection. The layers of work in the Louis Vuitton clothes were exceptional: a skirt that appeared to be an underwater print was, upon closer inspection, openwork and re-embroidered viscose jersey lined with a contrast silk mousseline. That happened again in lambskin, and in knits speckled with tiny beads, multiple tissue-thin layers of fabric fused with ramage embroidery into a single complex whole. Inspired by Juergen Teller images of cacti and seabeds, embroidery and custom-woven lace prickled across wetsuit-tight sweaters. Bags were quilted, the quilting piped in contrast leather, as if they were snared in a luxurious lobster pot.
Louis Vuitton is all about luxury – but this collection somehow transcended it. By pulling the wool over our eyes (or rather, the cloth over his windows), Ghesquiere seemed to be deflating the whole notion of these multiple cruise cruises. The overall message was that there was nothing pre about this collection – indeed, behind the layers of cloth blocking out the Monaco sunset, we could have been watching his collection anywhere. And it would have been just as great. That was the powerful takeaway from this Vuitton cruise cruise. Pre-collection no more: just call it a collection, and put as much thought, energy and effort into it as you do your mainline. That is what is expected now.
Photographer: Juergen Teller
By Alexander Fury
