Time Clash Louis Vuitton Fall/Winter 2020

Collisions of time. What if all of the innumerable eras that nourish fashion could come together in the here and now? And what if, in the present moment, we could confront history with contemporary freedoms, staged for the pure pleasure of fashion? A clash of styles, unexpected pairings, subverted functions... Dressing without protocol. Going from old to new and from unprecedented to patrimonial. Anachronism becomes an attitude. Testing one’s agility with respect to a wardrobe. This collection is like a sartorial tune-up in which personality takes precedence: everyone can pen their own history. The 200 characters in the historic grandstand are the work of Milena Canonero, Stanley Kubrick’s Designer of Costumes, who worked on “A Clockwork Orange”, “Barry Lyndon” and “The Shining”. Some 200 characters range from the 15th century to 1950.

Nicolas Ghesquière expands on his vision:

What is the inspiration for this collection?

In fashion, the notion of time is primordial. I wanted different eras to be confronted with another one, our own. All of these “pasts”, embodied by a gallery of personalities in period dress, converge in our present. We are all together, looking at a collection that itself recounts a living, perennial, stylistic clash — and everything we can do
with clothes by mixing and free-associating them. It’s sort of an anachrony of genres. It can simply be the pleasure of dressing and its many possibilities, free of protocol
or constraint. Taking what we already have at home and mixing it with what we like that’s new. This collection is about an “anti-total-look” that draws on individual personality, on the agility one experiences when confronting one’s own closet.
A piece of functional clothing can be part of formal dress, and vice versa.
It’s a proposition I wanted to be open, energetic and spontaneous. This collection
is about sartorial “tuning”.

Where did you find these characters?

We worked with the talented costumer Milena Canonero, who notably worked
on Stanley Kubrick’s films “A Clockwork Orange”, “Barry Lyndon” and “The Shining”, among other highly successful films. She created 200 characters ranging from
the 15th century to 1950. In counterpoint, there’s music composed by Woodkid
and Bryce Dessner, who also worked on time clashes. Their piece is called
“Three Hundred and Twenty”, a reference to the number of years between the various movements in the baroque composition that’s also been injected with minimalist, repetitive music. They resurrected the composer Nicolas de Grigny, a contemporary of Bach, who was never recognised by his peers and who never had the chance to play at the Louvre. Today, centuries later, he’s finally being heard! We’ve revived him.
The performance was orchestrated by theater director Francisco Negrin.

Please can you explain the accessories?

There’s the Keepall — a pure, vintage piece that acquired a beautiful patina over time. We just customised it with a new strap. There are also small satchels, mini-totes
and strange little streamlined minaudières. Shoes also illustrate a very free rein: revisited boots, metal cap-toe pumps that evoke wheel rims on a customised car.

Please can you explain the set?

As with the last show, it’s very stripped-back. It’s an immense stage where we are all the players are in the moment. Who are the actors? Who are the spectators?
All these cumulative periods are together in the same place. In the gallery, there’s
the past. On the benches, the present. On the runway, the not-so-distant future....
For this show, a rented glass structure covers a wood and Valchromat decor that is 100% certified PEFC (Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification) and sourced

from sustainably managed forests in France. In addition, all the wooden decor elements will be donated for reuse to various organisations in France.