Louis
Vuitton's new creative director Nicolas Ghesquiere recently debuted his
first collection for the label at Paris Fashion Week to critical acclaim. The
Autumn/Winter 2014 presentation showed the designer's new vision for the
luxurious Parisian fashion house and it was a fresh start, with new silhouettes
and not many references to past designs. Ghesquiere commented that designing
the collection was a lot of work but he decided to take a relaxed and casual
approach to the design process: "It was a lot of work. But I wanted
to approach it with an ease. I didn't want to do a story. It's clearly a
wardrobe, a new, more casual approach that I'm interested in. At Vuitton,
you have iconic pieces, you have comfortable pieces, you have embellished
pieces and it's the way you wear them that's important."
Nicolas
also added that he wanted there to be a closer connection between the company's
famous leather goods and the clothing items, so he decided to work with the
leather team to creating some of the items from the new collection. He said
that he would like people to see Louis Vuitton as more than just an accessories
company which is often what it is best known for: "Of course, given
the name, leather is very important. I asked the leather ateliers to develop
some of the clothes - I wanted to tighten the relationship between leather
goods and ready-to-wear. People have a tendency to see Vuitton as a
leather goods company because the bags are so strong. I really wanted to
integrate them with the look."
