The Autumn/Winter 2022 Louis Vuitton menswear collection pays tribute to the brand’s late men’s artistic director Virgil Abloh, whose seismic impact on fashion and culture will reverberate long throughout the 21st century. In a collective bow, the emotional Vuitton team embraced the show’s models, completing the vision of the wunderkind’s final collection, and first full-fledged Paris show since lockdowns began.
‘Louis Dreamhouse’ is the culmination of Abloh’s historic eight-season run at Vuitton, and as the fashion community would learn throughout this tenure, If Abloh could dream it, Vuitton could LV it. As his show notes stated, “Virgil Abloh defines the Boyhood Ideology® as the unspoiled outlook of a child, who is yet to be affected by the preconceived ideas of society. He wants to reset our preordained perceptions and start from scratch where clothes are clothes and humans are humans.”
In lieu of a somber feeling, this collection was joyful – a commemoration, yes, but also a celebration. An orchestra played against the backdrop of a surrealist set saturated in blue sky replete with a staircase to heaven, a bed, and a table set for dinner. The designer wanted an orchestra to play live whenever he could recommence physical shows for Louis Vuitton. That wish came true here.
The clothes themselves showed Abloh’s unbridled imagination as well as his wandering influences. Some themes and ideas he explored before were reexamined or reimagined: of course, there were the monogram, the Damier checks, and his tailoring, twisted, recolored, rethought, and his pictorial sweaters knit like scenes from his imagination. Furthermore, Abloh’s first LV campaign in 2019 recreating Gustave Courbet’s 1855 piece The Painter’s Studio, was reinterpreted as tapestries for this collection. Like the designer’s debut only four years ago, this collection was almost like coming full circle, back to the initial exhilaration and possibilities of his tenure at the luxury house.
Abloh’s work for Louis Vuitton was reconsidered through the closing of that circle, of a cycle, and a retrospective of sorts. However, with its finale of all-white outfits – the last look resembling Abloh’s Spring/Summer 2020 invitation – it felt like a love letter to the man who conceived it all with a soaring vision.
Cody is the Editor in Chief and senior contributor at liminul.
He is a photography aficionado, fashion enthusiast, avid Lana Del Rey fan, and lover of all things aesthetically pleasing.
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