RooMXMatez TM: FUTURE HERITAGE

FUTURE HERITAGE

By Unknown Thursday, February 04, 2016 Fashion Weeks

Kim Jones, Art Director of Louis Vuitton’s Men collection, presented in Paris his Fall/Winter 2016 collection. Amongst the guests who came to the show, Xavier Dolan, Lewis Hamilton, Dan Carter, Nick Robinson, Michael B. Jordan, Joel Edgerton, Georgia May Jagger, Jing Bo Ran, Luca Calvani, Marisa Berenson, Jade Jagger and Paul Simonon, all wearing Louis Vuitton.

©RooMXMatez TM 2015

A picture of Jacques-Henri Lartigue, a pile of Louis Vuitton’s chests, underneath the Tour Eiffel’s shadow, has been the beginning point to Luois Vuitton’s Men FW16. «This season I’ve been inspired by the Paris’ “old” and “new”», says Jones. The result is a conversation between past and present, 162 years immortalized in the Louis Vuitton’s archives and into the modern man’s wardrobe: a future patrimony. The conversation begins with the past, through the Art Deco era. A period of time that established the archetypes of the Paris as capital of the Arts, of the culture and of fashion, and which gave the lasting-blue-track to male sartorial elegance. Alexis Von Rosenberg, Baron of Redé, quintessence of the Parisian aesthete in Twentieth Century, inspired the jewellery that come in succession on the clearly dandy looks. Born in 1922, he lived till the Twenty-first Century and surely represents a clear bond between past and future.

A selection of classic pieces of male’s wardrobe: trench coats, furs, sartorial suits, jumpers, archetypes of the basis of men’s style and of the same Louis Vuitton’s male identity. Then the travel begins. The collection, throughout the present, tints the clothes with a nowadays’ sense and feeling. “Today” means utility, functionality, a melting mix of style and substance. The outerwear is light and double-fast, ram furs with graphic fantasies appear destabilized, but superbly refined. Cashmere blends in with silk, towards feather-light cloths. A new Louis Vuitton denim line reinterprets the simple jeans cotton according to the luxury idea of Louis Vuitton, having specialized artisans treat it with the “Roketsu” tinting technique. The crackle finish of the fabric is unique on any piece, including leather, treated for the first time using this technique as expression of Louis Vuitton savoir-faire. A Japanese origins technique, which bonds with the Maison’s past, and to Japan too, which inspires the late Century’s European artists, as well as the iconic Luois Vuitton monogram.

Monogram is a recurring motif in the collection. For this season the iconic canvas, has been redesigned according to a new timeless variation: Monogram Eclipse, a light contrast between greys and black, inspired by the black leather of the iconic Malle Courrier, Louis Vuitton’s archives’ belongings. The polish/opaque games continue through the introduction of the Monogram Illusio, present on various thin-leather bags and chests, which reflects the light thanks to the transparent silk. The iconic motif is used also to created a series of male mirrored chests: tool-kit, vanity, attaché and, last but not least, a portable bar, special order, homage to the Twenties, and created at the Asnieres’ Louis Vuitton atelier.

Anywhere, accessories and clothes work together with synergy, borrowing each other colours and prints. An innovative and sophisticated leather zip works as closure to the bags and adds a graphic point to the outfits. A series of functional leather accessories, attached to the bags, remind us the multipocket functional silhouettes of the pieces. Accessories offer a new wardrobe to men, made of iconic bags, the Keepall, the room-bag, the tote, the messenger bag and the Louis Vuitton’s Noah-bag-inspired backpack. Shoes are classic, military polished boots or Oxford shoes with wedge heels and stamped with the new Monogram Eclipse motif.

Thursday January 21st, at sunset in the Ville Lumière, Louis Vuitton’s Men FW16 show has been presented on a catwalk veiled with Shinji Ohmaki’s “Liminal Air Space-Time” artistic installation. The veil, part of the installation, makes the viewer conscious of the space and time dominion, while the natural light illuminates only an extremity of the runway. The combination between these two elements crate a breath-taking and unique environment to discover Kim Jones’ new collection. Louis Vuitton’s Art Director, celebrated his first five years at the head of LV’s male line, parading a collection inspired by all the places visited in the last years by the British designer. Paris, Maldives, Los Angeles and Tokyo are starting point, that actualizes itself through a collection that revolves around the theme of travel, as in the best Louis Vuitton’s tradition. The slim line of the outfit presented, focalizes itself on the outerwear: double-breasted coats, bomber jackets and light waterproof trench coats are the protagonists of the collection, along with the accessories and the prints declined according to the travel-theme.

Colours are dark blue, grey, black, dove-grey, military green, brown, beiges, robin’s-egg blue, white. Fabrics are furs, wool, silk, cool wool, leather, ram’s fur, technical cloths, nylon, printed denim, jersey. While the accessories are fur belts, monogram beauty-cases, rigid overnight-bags, leather brogue shoes, Napa leather gloves, thin silk scarves, metallic brooches, necklaces with pendants, hand-duffle bags, leather backpacks and shoulder bags.

A triumph of contrapositions: a-temporality and iconicity of the Maison’s tradiotion, with a never-ending giving of freshness and modernity.

Simone Bronzi

Creative Director of RooMXMatez TM