Louis Vuitton Pre-Fall 2024 Collection

Since the start of his tenure at Louis Vuitton a decade ago, Nicolas Ghesquière has shown his cruise collections in destinations far removed from the house’s Parisian base — everywhere from Rio de Janeiro to Palm Springs and Kyoto. More recently, he has also started marketing his pre-fall offerings. This year’s show took place today in Shanghai at the Long Museum West Bund; it was his first show in China.

Ghesquière took the opportunity to collaborate with the young Chinese artist Sun Jitian. Her cartoonish animals – a leopard, a penguin, a pink rabbit with LV fleur de lys, like stars, in his eyes – decorated an A-line car coat, underwear and miniskirts, as well as bags and shoes, lending the collectible. quality of previous engagements with people like Yayoi Kusama and his girlfriend, the editor Grace Coddington.

During the fall show he staged in Paris last month, Ghesquière visited and renewed his signatures. No one who sees this collection would mistake it for anything other than his own. That’s an asset that will likely serve him and Louis Vuitton well as fashion moves through a once-in-a-decade shift in atmosphere. A challenging global market leaves some designers longing for a new style; Ghesquière, on the other hand, seems certain.

The entrance of Sun’s hyperreal creatures was followed by a long series of florals, some on what appeared to be softly draped jersey, making them at once feminine and sporty, and others embroidered on utility vests and knee-high board shorts for a bolder look. A cropped, zip-front shirt evoked memories of an iconic surf-themed collection, and patchwork shell jackets, motocross leathers and wide sarouel trousers could also have been a nod to his back catalogue.

Ghesquière has been a trouser maestro since his Balenciaga days, but here he was more interested in skirts, with many fluttering, sleek versions, sometimes longer at the back than the front and sometimes worn over shorts. Finally, he dialed back the prints and embellishments, but not the drama, by showing a trio of voluminous bubble dresses in what appeared to be white, platinum and black silk duchesse. These were about silhouette, not surfaces, and they had a subtle but undeniable wow factor.