Louis Vuitton menswear channels digital age in Paris show

By THOMAS ADAMSON AP Fashion Writer

PARIS — Singer Rosalía stunned guests at Louis Vuitton’s digital age-themed menswear show in Paris on Thursday with a surprise reveal in shades and hooded jacket atop a vintage 1980s yellow sedan.

The boundary-breaking Spanish star delivered an electrifying vocal performance, delving in and out of a childhood movie set co-created by Michel Gondry, director of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”

During her performance, the Grammy winner darted among awe-struck celebrities, including J-Balvin, Usher, Kit Harington, J-Hope, Tahar Rahim and Lucien Laviscount, who all gave the spectacle rousing applause.

VUITTON GOES MILLENNIAL

The Louis Vuitton men’s studio took control of the house’s creative helm after the death of Virgil Abloh in 2021. Yet Thursday’s set — a vintage childhood home recreated inside the Louvre’s oldest courtyard was a theme continuing Abloh’s coming-of-age styles that defined his Vuitton tenure from 2018-2021.

This season, the youthful studio team and guest designer Colm Dillane channeled growing up “as members of the first generation raised on super-connectivity.” References to the digital age thus abounded in the creative and tailoring-heavy display — which was more successful when it kept it simple.

Patterns evoked encrypted computer coding, while handwritten school notes —which are deemed obsolete in today’s world — were upcycled to produce a surreal white suit and top hat look whose facade was constructed entirely of the note paper.

The collection at times felt reliant on gimmicks, such as pixelated apples on an otherwise beautiful round-shouldered wool coat.

The best looks were minimalist, such as a light gray suit jacket that sported one large childlike button and a fabulous tapered V-shape owing to masterful construction with interlocking layers of fabric.

ISSEY MIYAKE GOES COMPLEX, BRIGHT

A writhing dance troupe performed on the runway against a backdrop of optically striped lighting, which moved organically.

It was more than just spectacle and introduced a geometric theme this season — how simple shapes can be folded to create more complex ones — something that the Japanese house explored in several distinct sections usinb its signature techno-pleating techniques throughout.

The Homme Plisse Issey Miyake collection began with a beautiful, soft new coat silhouette — in flashes of eye-popping color — with ridge-like shoulder tucks and warped tubular sleeves. Lines in the groove of the pleating gave the impression of complexity, even if the silhouettes themselves seemed minimalist.

Elsewhere, the idea of simplicity spawning more than the sum of its parts was developed with flair in a style called the “edge coat.” The amorphous-pleated garment resembled a sort of dark jellyfish, designed using triangular shaped fabric that created a sublime three-dimensional shape.