March 11, 2026 |
Photography by Ethan James Green
“This is a new chapter, a new page we are turning,” says Nicolas Ghesquière, Louis Vuitton’s artistic director of women’s collections, of his SS26 collection, one that seemed to break with his distinct sci-fi, time-travelling aesthetic and offer a startling new softness and intimacy.
He’s talking in his vast, glass-walled studio space on the upper floor of Louis Vuitton’s head offices, which is filled with prototype designs on rails and carefully curated pieces of modernist furniture. We settle onto a sleek leather sofa, although I’m warned not to lean back too hard on the arms as this modern antique can be a little temperamental. This is Ghesquière’s happy place, where he works on his collections with his team. Paris bustles below and, framed by vast windows, Notre-Dame Cathedral and the Eiffel Tower tease us with their picture postcard familiarity. Louis Vuitton, too, is soaring above the competition, unassailable as the world’s largest luxury house. It occurs to me that, up here, in his creative eyrie, Ghesquière is on top of the world.
Nicolas Ghesquière is the preeminent designer of our time and when a creative of his calibre shifts gear, you notice. Known for the fearless audacity of his silhouettes, he skipped fashion school to work directly with Jean Paul Gaultier, whom he still counts as a friend and mentor. From there he went to Balenciaga, taking the creative director role aged just 26. A master of futurist fashion fantasy, this was his 15-year-long era of shock and awe. Where he went, the rest of the fashion world followed, and his influence could be felt at every level of fashion. He transformed Balenciaga from an almost forgotten heritage brand into a powerhouse.
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He made his Louis Vuitton debut in 2013, but rather than continue with wild experimentation, Ghesquière introduced a wardrobe inspired by what the women in his studio wanted to wear every day – sleek leather jackets, sturdy boots, leggy miniskirts and mini versions of LV’s famous trunks. Over the years it’s developed into a distinct design language, grounded in outgoing, adventurous pieces layered with era-hopping elegance. “It’s this kind of twisted uniform,” he says of his signatures. “There is always that hybridisation. It’s not a patchwork, or a collage, but two pieces of clothes that you know. And also, there are the more classic pieces.” He’d put his little boxy jackets, half-pleat trousers, cargo pants and leather biker looks into that category. Into this modern, classic mix he adds soaring, time-travelling fantasy. Dazzling 18th-century frock coats worn with futuristic trainers and running shorts, dresses inspired by medieval armour, panniered flapper gowns and dancing crinolines.
For SS26 he has expanded that distinct LV design vocabulary yet again. His “new page” was unveiled at the Musée du Louvre in the newly renovated 17th-century summer apartments of Anne of Austria, Queen of France and mother of Louis XIV. The rooms from which she reigned, first as queen and then regent for her son, who was crowned aged just four, had been closed to the public for years. “The Louvre said, we have this possibility. The gallery has been restored. It’s empty, which is not going to happen for another 25, 30 years. I was like, we have this apartment. That’s a sign.”
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That sense of being in a private, personal apartment (however much gold leaf there is on the ceiling) struck a chord with Ghesquière. He’d already been thinking along more intimate lines. “We all reacted to what’s going on in the world,” he says. The news cycle prompted a shift in him, a desire for safe spaces, sanctuary and the emotional security of home. “It was about wrapping something soft around the woman’s body, as simple as that. And then it became the collection,” says the designer.
We live in anxious times but, he says, “Anxiety is not a motivation.” He exudes the confidence of a grand master but wears the weight of his accomplishments lightly. Ghesquière smiles a lot and has a lot to smile about. The pressure to produce is immense at this level in fashion but he has kept openness, curiosity and a sensitivity to change at the emotional heart of his work. “The idea of a certain comfort, intellectual, spiritual, mental, is important. I wanted the collection first to reflect that.” It was time for his strident Louis Vuitton woman, who has always expressed an outgoing adventurous spirit, to show a different side of herself.
“I wanted to share a moment, in a soft way, but without compromising the powerful strength of women and the position of women in society. She doesn’t have to look like she’s like a man, or she’s dressed in sharp clothes. And I did a lot of that [in past collections], you know, like the futuristic armour. She can also carry other types of clothes and have the same expression of strength.”
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Starting from a private place, where social conventions don’t belong and personal preferences are indulged to the max, must have been liberating for the designer, who is known for his sci-fi futurism. The focus on an intimate, more domestic sphere brought a new comfort-dressing eccentricity to his oeuvre. “I love the idea of people expressing how they feel when they are at home and when they share intimate feelings or fun things. You know, dressing for home, is an idea that is very pleasant,” says the designer, who recently showcased in Vanity Fair the John Lautner-designed Los Angeles home he’s renovating with his partner Drew Kuhse, a communications and branding consultant.
We’ve all heard the phrase dance like nobody’s watching. Ghesquière applied that uninhibited approach to clothes. What does it look like when you dress like nobody’s watching, or judging? What does it look like when you dress purely to please yourself? That shift in perspective unleashed his creativity. He tasked his design team to “feed me with your absolute fantasy of being the best version of yourself at home”.
The result was a playful new Louis Vuitton look. There was plenty of glamorous loungewear like the sheer smoke-grey pyjamas and dressing gown with curving seams picked out in black piping, or the fluffy teddy bear coats modelled on bathrobes, some encrusted with crystal flowers. Eccentricities were freely expressed with cute little drop-crotch rompers, pink negligée dresses worn over tailored trousers, fluffy bed cardigans and zip-off arctic white track pants layered over stripy long johns.
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Ghesquière’s experimental side found freedom of expression in lantern-shaped skirts and appliqué ‘bedspread’ tops, or the wooden coasters used in lieu of sequins to decorate hems. Models sauntered around the salons carrying handbags modelled on wash bags, wearing oversized turbans and tapestry slippers with matching socks. The show closed with a striking fringed romper, each strand a dégradé of minuscule beads that created an impressionist landscape. Staying in never looked so good.
But wait a minute. Though Louis Vuitton has embodied an intrepid spirit – outgoing, voyaging, adventuring – since the beginning of his tenure at the house, “you can travel in your apartment,” says the designer. He hasn’t abandoned that idea of exploration, just expanded it into new realms. “There is a dialogue between leaving home with something that is part of home, like we all do, and staying home and travelling in your home because of the richness of your cultural environment and human interaction.” In any case, he sees an LV bag as a symbol of a little piece of you that you take out into the world.
Ghesquière is the most prescient mind in fashion and, as ever, he’s onto something. There’s an undeniable shift in luxury towards what he describes as “the lifestyle thing”. A 21st-century brand, he says, is “more than a product. People now want to live in the LV world. People are demanding this, experiencing food, experiencing living in LV worlds, which is strange but interesting.” It’s why, for his show, he filled Anne of Austria’s apartment with carefully curated design pieces spanning three centuries of taste. This move to a 360-degree view of the brand represents the biggest shift in his design career. “I prefer to say universe la femme now, more than fashion only,” he says of this expanded view. Even his approach to casting has a world-building, cinematic quality. “We work by personal character. We call the girls characters. We don’t call them models anymore. We build characters and we invite the girls to try to act, to embody, to represent.”
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His Vuitton years have marked a remarkable period of growth, both personal and professional. He recalls the weight of anticipation around his debut collection. “People were expecting a Balenciaga formula to be transferred to Vuitton. And I didn’t want to do that. So, you know, I had to change my skin.” That change of skin also brought an emotional evolution. “Before, I was less comfortable. I had the feeling that I had to be remote to be focused. Some people thought it was snobby, but it was the structure at Balenciaga.” At Vuitton he relaxed, allowing himself to flourish in a structure and culture built to support his creativity. “I had to integrate this idea of reaching more people. But it helped me so much here to really open up,” he says.
His happy place is still in the design studio with his team (a mix of trusted collaborators who have been with him since the beginning and young talents bringing “a new jolt of energy”) as they work towards that collective eureka moment when an idea hits home. “The life of the studio is everything,” he says. “There’s something that suddenly connects and comes together. There’s something we found. So let’s feel that and go further. This moment is pure fashion,” he says. What they are all aiming for is something impactful in the moment but also built to last. Craft imparts longevity. “The idea always with the team is that we hope it’s going to have a second life. It’s not disposable. It’s real luxury.” The booming second-life market for high fashion is, he says, “the best news [in recent] years for our industry”.
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Wherever he goes, that urge to create fashion is something he can’t turn off. It’s how his brain is wired. “I am always seeing the world through the prism, through the loop – the hourglass. I see things and transform them into fashion. I go to places and think about a cruise show. I go to see people, then I see the handle of a door on the street and I’m like, ‘That’s good for a bag.’”
At 54, he’s too young to be regarded as an elder statesman, but he is conscious of what he’s achieved and his lofty place in the aristocracy of fashion. We happen to be talking on the day of Valentino Garavani’s funeral. “We all need to look up to someone,” he says, citing Karl Lagerfeld and Azzedine Alaïa as key figures for him. Of the current crop of designers, he singles out Martine Rose, Grace Wales Bonner and Phoebe Philo for special praise. As for the new guard, with almost 20 luxury houses debuting new creative directors this season, Ghesquière welcomes the changes and the new energy they bring. “I think it’s great news. It’s very refreshing. Those big fashion names are like beautiful castles and you have to take care of them with a lot of love and maintenance. And one day, the best news is that they are transmitted to the right person, right? You wish for a good match.”
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And time. How many of the new guard will still be in post once the standard three-year contracts expire? Ghesquière is now almost 13 years into his Louis Vuitton tenure and reaping the benefits of playing the long game. “I’m in my era of maturity, definitely!” he reflects. “There is a certain accomplishment, I’m not afraid to say, in developing the codes, aesthetic and silhouette that have now become recognisable. It has become not only appreciated, but the style signature for Louis Vuitton. So my era, yes, it’s about maturity but also not being afraid of experimentation because this is a beautiful laboratory.” He smiles. “There’s a certain serenity about it. The excitement is high, but the serenity is definitely there.”
10 Magazine Issue 76 – CREATIVITY, CHANGE, FREEDOM – is out on newsstands March 18. Pre-order your copy here.
LOUIS VUITTON: SHAPE SHIFTING
Photographer FERRY VAN DER NAT
Fashion Editor SOPHIA NEOPHITOU
Text CLAUDIA CROFT
Model ASAKO SATO at The MiLK Collective
Hair HIROSHI MATSUSHITA
Make-up ANDREW GALLIMORE
Manicurist HAYLEY EVANS-SMITH
Digital operator FEDERICO COVARELLI FEDERICI
Photographer’s assistant CONNOR EGAN
Fashion assistants GEORGIA EDWARDS, SONYA MAZURYK, SASKIA LEWIS and TOMMY DOWLING
Casting SIX WOLVES
Production ZAC APOSTOLOU
Clothing, shoes, bag and accessories throughout LOUIS VUITTON
