Collaboration is key at Louis Vuitton – they done it with Takashai Murakami, with Richard Prince, with Stephen Spouse and several times with Jake and Dinos Chapman – their ghoulish menagerie of mutated animals grinned from many a clutched man-bag in the audience of Kim Jones’s winter 2017 show. But for said winter collection, Jones’ collar wasn’t with an artist but with another super brand – Supreme, the Louis Vuitton of streetwear. Only, now, Vuitton and Supreme have teamed up. So what does that make? A megabrand, a mega collab, and a stunningly great collection. The theme was New York City – the actual home of Supreme, and one of the many locales Jones visits regularly on his multiple travels (he’s already been on six plane journeys this year. “It’s uptown and downtown,” said he. “Artists and musicians, friends and heroes.” Supreme and Vuitton are friends it seems; their pieces were heroic too. At least, you’ll be a hero for your Supreme and Vuitton-loving mates if you can rescue one of these pieces from the near riot scenes they’re bound to provoke. “No New York City men’s conversation is complete without Supreme,” said Kim. Right too. But this wasn’t the only story in the collection: the silhouette was natty and must-have too, louche and loosened up in slick cashmeres, vicuna and paper-thin leather cut with a Studio 54 slickness (more NYC riffing and referencing), while the Supreme logo stuff seeped into the clothes in an ode to eighties Harlem hustler tailor Dapper Dan – think a pale washed Vuitton Japanese denim baseball top, and a snapback cap shoved atop every look, with bandanas and wallet-chains shining about four-figure white crocodile kicks. Sounds brilliant? yeah, it was…. well, it was supreme. With a small “s”.
Photographs by Jason Lloyd-Evans
