The stretches and leaps creative directors can make to allow one plus one to equal three are sometimes truly osteopathic and acrobatic, respectively. Take Pharrell Williams’ latest Louis Vuitton Spring/Summer 2026 menswear collection, for instance. Take Monsieur Louis Vuitton’s calling – mainly packing and almost incidentally crafting travel-trunks for the aristocracy of mid-19th century Europe to roam the globe – and add in former artistic director Marc Jacobs’ collaboration with filmmaker Wes Anderson on luggage for his 2006 film The Darjeeling Limited (stamped with illustrations by the director’s brother, Eric Chase). Seems like enough of an excuse to journey to India for the latest show – at least, to travel in your mind’s eye, from a giant 1,500-odd seater stadium built out back of the Centre Pompidou. Right?
Jacobs, incidentally, also made a trio of suits for the film – which seem to have influenced Williams too, given that this show cut a sharp line in tailoring. There’s also, in costume, a process called ‘breaking down’, which basically means artificially weathering and ravaging fabrics, to give them a life and reality on screen. That was also a major part of this Vuitton show – fabrics and leathers scorched, sun-faded and brushed. It’s an odd and perverse pleasure, given that among certain crowds, once Vuitton’s trademark vachetta full-grain cowhide loses its box-fresh pallor and gained a golden patina of hide, it’s time to ditch and buy anew. Here, cloth and leather alike were mussed-up, treated and generally worked, with the same attention usually afforded to embroideries or hand-stitched crocodile bags.
There were plenty of those, of course – if anything, this Louis Vuitton show was even richer than before, with intricate embroideries resembling gemstones or executed in gold thread, Indian studded trunks wheeled out on gurneys (a Williams Vuitton seasonal appearance, that serves to encapsulate the specific theme of any show), and a tree-of-life carpet weave. That all befits the Indian influence – the country is touted by many as the next global luxury hotspot, and its own traditions of craft excellence are rich and multi-faceted. They’ve been explored by many brands – for a number of seasons, Dior had partnered with the Chanakya School of Craft in the centre of Mumbai to execute complex embroideries, for instance. But here, the collaboration extended across the clothes, accessories, jewellery, sunglasses and to the design of the set – by architect Bijoy Jain of Studio Mumbai, based around a game of Snakes and Ladders, which originated in ancient India as Moksha Patam, which roughly translates as “Falling from the highest goal of human life.” You can see why it was simplified when it was first brought back to Britain from the Empire in the 1890s – feasibly, in a Louis Vuitton case. Oh and, of course, the animal print of The Darjeeling Limited luggage has been spun out across an entire new accessories range, and a few denims and suits too.
There’s a bigger idea at play here, which is to unite Vuitton with different corners of the globe, with different creatives, to bring everyone together. Williams has seen that as something of a calling – his first show paid homage to his own home of Virginia, his second collaborated with Native American First Nations, and he staged a Pre-Fall show in 2023 in Hong Kong. Vuitton has eschewed calling itself a fashion house, preferring the phrase ‘Cultural Maison’ to underline the depth and breadth of its goals. Which goes beyond dominating a global luxury-goods market (it probably does that already in terms of its multi-billion-euro turnover). What Williams is really interested in, through his music and now through Vuitton, is reaching as many people as possible, and inspiring them.
Which is great. It’s bold, ambitious, universal. But for fashion geeks like yours truly, what’s really great is when that boils down to fantastic clothes, beautifully executed, in amazing fabrications, expertly handled. This was a fantastic Vuitton show on both sides of that coin – no snakes, all ladders. Going up.
