What a landing! The 2020 itinerant resort tour touched down at JFK on Wednesday evening, as Nicolas Ghesquière took his Louis Vuitton audience on a complicated first-class trip. The much-hyped show took place at the much-hyped TWA Hotel, opening next week in the famous former TWA Flight Center designed in 1962 by Eero Saarinen as a marvel of mid-century architecture and abandoned in 2001 when the airline went kerplunk and was assimilated into American Airlines. The winged marvel of a building holds special resonance for Ghesquière, not only because he has long been architecture-obsessed but because the building provided his first impression of New York, in 1991. Related stories Louis Vuitton's Cruise Journey Begins and Ends With Architecture Tapestry Makes International Comeback 2019 Mother's Day Gift Guide for All Mothers “I’m old,” Ghesquière said with self-effacing charm backstage after the show, “so I landed here one trip. I always remember the place, here, this terminal. Arriving to this fantastic city…and at the same time, at this masterpiece of architecture.” This proved a more high-profile arrival, the Flight Center now populated by a celeb-heavy throng of LV-clad revelers including Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas (just your typical honeymooners passing through JFK), as well as Emma Stone, Julianne Moore, Tracy Morgan, Jennifer Connelly, Willow Smith, Ruth Negga, Robyn, Indya Moore and even Armani loyalist Cate Blanchett. They settled into swerving, roomy seating (a happy trend this resort in New York), to watch Ghesquière’s models walk the upstairs bridge before descending the double-sided staircase. One assumed from the get-go that Ghesquière chose the venue in recognition of its compelling decorative restraint, heavy on concrete and chrome. Yet he hedged on the austerity, installing tropical-looking plants everywhere (ladies room included — a gorgeous orchid fest). Though lovely, the greenery played in odd opposition to the powerful urban aesthetic and, if the point was for guests to take in the man-made splendor, a distraction from it. Story continues The clothes featured elements inspired by the city’s Art Deco architecture as well as Wall Street and Gotham City tropes. “As a French guy, I have no problem to go with the cliché of New York,” Ghesquière said. Yet the takeaway had nothing to do with cliché. Some smart pinstripes notwithstanding, you’d never look at these clothes, and hum, “New York, New York, a hell of a town.” Rather, Ghesquière presented a highly ornamented rendering on tough chic, always glam and often arch and sometimes pretty, with a strong current of Eighties, and soupçons of Renaissance portraiture and the designer’s signature Superhero futurism. Capes factored prominently, in structured winglike versions that delivered the Supergal vibe over pleated trousers and soft, shimmering capelets attached to leather jackets in audacious juxtaposition. Prints and elaborate, exquisitely rendered brocades and embroideries were Art Deco inspired, often in the context of Eighties-influenced silhouettes; miniskirts with poufed appendages paired variously with biker jacket or bustier. And in the midst of it, snippets of relative calm in divergent takes on that Wall Street look: no-nonsense pantsuit and relaxed belted trench dress. As noted, it was a complicated lineup, sometimes too much so. But it was packed with powerful ideas and interesting looks. Speaking of which, that video-screen handbag — the accessory of the future? Why not? Launch Gallery: Louis Vuitton Cruise 2020 Sign up for WWD's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.<doc-sep>Image courtesy of Louis Vuitton. Like so much of midcentury modernist architecture now, the Eero Saarinen-designed TWA Flight Center at John F. Kennedy airport stokes a weird sensational mash up of nostalgia and futuristic wonder. We see a building conceived in 1962, glistening with all of the imagination of what a Space Age future could look like, but we also see a future unfulfilled and ambition eclipsed by the limitations of man. Even still, we wonder when all buildings might looks like this one. There’s something so old about it and so new all the same. It’s a mindfuck, really. Image courtesy of Louis Vuitton. And that’s exactly why the newly renovated space was the perfect setting for Nicolas Ghesquière’s trippy clash of a Cruise 2020 show for Louis Vuitton. Image courtesy of Louis Vuitton. I saw that same conflation of style and times reflected in this collection. Futuristic black leather skullcaps dotted the runway between Blade Runner bouffants perched atop decadently embellished boleros boasting cheeky embellishments that nodded to the golden age of New York Art Deco architecture. One top embroidered with beaded peaks evoking the Chrysler Building glittered and gleamed like the real thing on Lexington Avenue, bearing a striking contrast to the slick interiors of the glossy new terminal in the dead center of Queens. In some looks pinstripe suiting referred to the certain charms of turn of the century Wall Street, but in others, the culotte cut of the old school fabric stirred up the punky feels of St. Marks place. The collection was a perfect study in temporal and physical contrast, but there was one piece with which my obsession could reach no greater degree: A 2019 reworking of an iconic top handle handbag that displayed two LED screens which Vuitton refers to as the “digital Canvas of the Future” in a post-show press release. Image courtesy of Louis Vuitton. I adored that this bag was the exact inverse of a very mid-century tableau: a scene of people walking and stopping past color television screens on busy city streets, awed by the innovation and possibility that an in-home TV represented. Now, the screens walk past you. It’s another in between moment in a way. Screens are a part of our everyday life; we scroll and stroll and scroll some more, but never quite in this way. It’s reminiscent of a type of technology that could have been made years ago, but that we seemed to lap in imagining the future of visual consumption. Ghesquière is circling back, with an entirely new proposition. As soon as Netflix gets involved, I’ll never need another bag again. Louis Vuitton is boarding a flight back to the future, and you better believe I’m going with it.<doc-sep>Leave it to Louis Vuitton to make a trip to the airport très chic. The French design house held its cruise 2020 fashion show at the iconic (and newly renovated!) TWA Flight Center at John F. Kennedy International airport in NYC on Wednesday, May 8, and stars turned out in style to take in all the aviation-inspired duds from the front row. Fresh off their appearances at the Met Gala in campy LV fashions, friends of the brand and ambassadors like Sophie Turner and Joe Jonas, Emma Stone, Alicia Vikander and more (think: Julianne Moore, Cate Blanchett and Michelle Williams) were all on hand to see the wanderlust collection that blended French and American sensibilities. “I was lucky enough to have landed at the TWA Flight Center in the late ’90s. It was something I could never forget,” creative director Nicolas Ghesquière said in a statement. “This place was forgotten for 20 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.” Makeup artist Pat McGrath created a bold beauty look that consisted of #flawless skin, bright lips and matching draped blush to complement the rich color palette, sophisticated prints, clever embroideries and dazzling brocade found throughout the line, while mane man Duffy dreamed up ’80s-era crimps and curls. Oh, and since models were traversing the stairs and wings of the former airport terminal, not a single one of the catwalkers wore heels. Instead, they paired their party-worthy minis and jet age-inspired jumpsuits with cool combat boots and flats that have Us rethinking our night-out footwear game. In the front row, Turner, Nina Dobrev and Laura Harrier followed their lead in lugged-sole brogues, and there was so much more star style where that came from. Keep scrolling to see all the front-row fashion from the Louis Vuitton cruise 2020 fashion show!<doc-sep>Last night, fashion insiders made their way to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport, en route not to Paris, London, or Milan but a destination a bit more domestic. In fact, they never left the tarmac. Louis Vuitton staged its 2020 Cruise runway inside the spread-winged 1962 TWA Flight Center, a former terminal designed by late architect Eero Saarinen that has been meticulously restored and re-envisioned as a public lobby for a new hotel by firms Beyer Blinder Belle and Lubrano Ciavarra Architects. The show was the first event to grace the newly restored space, which opens to the public on May 15. As models walked the classic Chili Pepper Red carpet and past the heart-shaped sunken lounge with penny-tile benches, Louis Vuitton invitees got a sneak peek at one of the year's most highly anticipated projects. Models strutted the iconic Chili Pepper Red carpet in looks from the new 2020 Cruise collection, which riffed on a foreigner's vision of New York City. Photo: Courtesy of Louis Vuitton The brand's artistic director, Nicolas Ghesqui``ere, collaborated with artist Es Devlin to reinvent the iconically stark (aside from its poppy-colored carpeting and matching seating) structure as a lush, plant-filled oasis. Models strutted the indoor bridge, stairs, and ramps in looks from the new collection, which riffed on a foreigner's vision of New York City: Art Deco architectural details, classic skyline images, and Wall Street suiting silhouettes were designed in colors both punchy and serious. Pots of bamboo sprouted from the sidelines, while ivy clung to railings. All the plants used for the show will be donated or composted, assures the brand. Seats for the Louis Vuitton runway ascended the concrete stair landings leading to the terminal's original Solari split-flap board, which has been restored. MCR CEO Tyler Morse, who is developing the TWA Flight Center project, is a self-proclaimed AvGeek. Photo: Courtesy of Louis Vuitton Louis Vuitton's 2019 Cruise show was hosted at the Fondation Maeght in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France, a 1964 modern art museum designed by the late Spanish architect Josep Lluís Sert. It seems that Ghesqui``ere has a pernchant for midcentury-modern venues. "I was lucky enough to have landed at the TWA Flight Center in the late '90s; it was something I could never forget," he explains of the inspiration behind showing his latest fashion designs for the house in the architectural icon. Though the terminal closed in 2001 and has sat empty at the center of JetBlue's hub since then, he believes the TWA Flight center is a "sanctuary" that, thanks to its renovation and reinvention, will "enchant anew." What's exciting about the project, and inspiration for the collection, he sums up, is its imminent rediscovery: It's "an uncommon place that yet is a part of American heritage."<doc-sep>
The evening began with a shuttle bus ride that snaked through Manhattan and Queens rush-hour traffic for almost two hours on the way to John F. Kennedy International Airport, and then continued an additional 45 minutes more before the first model walked the runway. At one point, an attendee in the front row wailed to her seatmate, “Can’t they at least give us some food?” — echoing the familiar complaint of coach passengers trapped on yet another uncomfortable, interminable journey. If Nicolas Ghesquière, creative director of Louis Vuitton, was trying to recreate the flight from hell at the 2020 cruise show staged at the TWA Flight Center on Wednesday night, he did an almost perfect job of it. Traffic jams. Long lines. Confusion over seat assignments. It had an all-too-familiar ring. But if the space was a challenging one, you had to give Ghesquière credit for at least picking a venue that not only underscored the beginnings of Louis Vuitton as a travel accessories company but that also paid tribute to a fellow creative trailblazer. The old TWA terminal, soon to reopen as a luxury hotel, was designed by the legendary Eero Saarinen. With its swooping lines that resemble a bird in flight, it was long considered one of the most elegant airport terminals in the world before it was shut down in 2001. And people seemed thrilled to get a sneak preview of its reawkening, eagerly posting their photos on Instagram and Twitter while they waited for the show to begin. Looks from the Louis Vuitton Cruise 2020 collection runway show presented at the former TWA terminal at New York’s JFK airport on May 8, 2019. (Dia Dipasupil / Getty Images for Louis Vuitton) “I was lucky enough to have landed at TWA Flight Center in the late ’90s,” Ghesquière said after the show. “It was something I could never forget. This place was forgotten for 20 years, and now has come back to life.” There was a definite buzz of glamour in the crowd. The show came two days after the Met Gala, for which Ghesquière dressed three Oscar winners (Emma Stone, Alicia Vikander and Jennifer Connelly), one Jones brother (Joe) and one famous daughter (Riley Keough). They were all there on Wednesday, along with Michelle Williams, Justin Theroux, Julianne Moore and Cate Blanchett, as well as dozens of attendees who, based on their over-the-top outfits, looked like they were still trying to find the right look for the “camp”-themed gala two days earlier. At around 7:15 p.m., just a quarter-hour later than the announced departure time, the models emerged, grim-faced and determined-looking, whizzing by as if they were trying to catch a plane, their heavy black boots pounding the floor, and ominous music playing loudly in the background. (If you were afraid of flying, this was not the fashion show for you.) Looks from the Louis Vuitton Cruise 2020 collection runway show presented at the former TWA terminal at New York’s JFK airport on May 8, 2019 (Dia Dipasupil / Getty Images for Louis Vuitton) Some of the looks were delicate and lovely, like an elegant pink-checked blazer over skinny white pants. And some were fun and flirty, like flouncy miniskirts in blue and silver and in neon fuschia. But others, like a metal-studded black jacket and a severe pinstriped suit, projected a fierceness that made you wonder whether this was a cruise collection meant for a traveling band of dominatrixes. (Did I mention those boots?) But as with almost all of Ghesquière’s work since he was named creative director of Louis Vuitton in 2013, the overall look was luxe and sumptuous; the intricate handiwork almost challenging you to reach out and touch it from your seat. It’s a look that can turn even an airport terminal into the most elegant runway in town.