NICHOLAS GHESQUIÈRE and JUERGEN TELLER Bring Us the Future-Archeology of LOUIS VUITTON Autumn-Winter 2016

Handbags are the fashion industry’s daily bread. They symbolize status in a way other items rarely do. Yet conscious efforts must be made in order to maintain a desirable, fluid, and contemporary brand identity beyond this glitzy ring. As his latest collection for the house proves once again, Nicolas Ghesquière—with a love for its heritage and simultaneous lust for exploration—is more than well-fit for this task.

Travel runs through Vuitton’s DNA, but for the trunk-maker’s Autumn-Winter 2016 collection, Nicolas Ghesquiere explores the implications of travelling through time as well as space. Along with artist Justin Morin’s set of 57 concrete columns adorned with shattered mirrors—a futuristic Atlantis discovered beneath layers of history and dirt—Ghesquière presented a meditation on the remnants of our time that will outlast it. Here, the qualities that unify us with past signifiers seep into today’s fashions and ideas of womanhood. The Louis Vuitton woman is a chic nomad, constantly on the move – much like Lightning, the star of Final Fantasy XIII and face of the house’s most recent campaign.

Ghesquière’s dynamic heroine mines her luggage for true classicism, and pairs it with the athleticism that supports her explorative spirit in creating silhouettes as complex as she is interested in being. In a lookbook shot by Juergen Teller, a close-up look on the collection’s stretch-zipped bi-dresses, foulard prints, metallic lace-up ankle books, and the presentation’s set brings to mind actor Kristen Stewart’s ever-valid assessment of Ghesquière. Pierre-Alexandre de Looz’s profile on Ghesquière for 032c quotes her musing that – and this he shares with the women he dedicates his work to – “Nicolas is the sort of person who loves swimming in rough water.”