Louis Vuitton’s Creative Director Nicolas Ghesquière got his trans-Atlantic vibe on for Louis Vuitton’s Women’s 2020 Cruise Collection show.
The collection landed at New York City’s The TWA Flight Center, John F. Kennedy airport’s architectural treasure that Eero Saarinen conceived like a vast bird, at the height of public enthusiasm for the Jet Age, when dreams of elsewhere became a tangible reality.
I was lucky enough to have landed at the TWA Flight Center in the late Nineties. It was something I could never forget. This place was forgotten for twenty years and now has come back to life. It’s like a sanctuary that’s been revived and seeing it enchant anew in a different iteration, as a hotel, is a great pleasure. It’s about rediscovering of an uncommon place that yet is a part of American heritage.
– Nicolas Ghesquière
The terminal has been closed for the past 20 years but not 100% forgotten, as Hollywood leveraged its stylistic atmosphere for films from Steven Spielberg’s Catch Me If You Can to the recent Ocean’s 8. Next week the international set will be able to take advantage of a luxury layover as it will reopen as a hotel complete with 500-plus rooms and an infinity pool.
The collection played ode to both Saarinen’s biomorphic architecture and the thrill of aviation as models sported leather aviator caps coupled with dramatic batwing sleeves. There were touches of 80s nostalgia from bubble skirts to smokey eyes paired with rouge high cheekbone makeup by the ever talented Pat McGrath.
Overall it was a powerful collection that had one foot in fantasy and the other grounded in luxury, Nicolas Ghesquière trademarks.
