Welcome to the hotel Louis Vuitton where the rooms are small but the girls are pretty. Marc Jacobs had sex in his mind and offered Paris and, let’s face it, the whole past month of fashion week, a hefty dose of it. What else were those women doing in their hotel rooms, their Louis Vuitton luggage neatly parked by the door? Playing poker? Their brunette pixie hair was messy and most of them looked like they had thrown on a slip and their fur coat on their way out. Those who didn’t were only just checking in.
As a showpiece it was on a smaller scale than last season’s Daniel Buren designed escalators or The Train – but then, what isn’t on a smaller scale than The Train? Chanel’s icebergs, perhaps. There was an intimacy in the air, the audience as passive observers in these women’s lives. Once each door was open, we could see a Ruth Hogben-directed film in the background offering depth and, more importantly, a story. A balding man sitting by the side of a bed. A woman slipping her stockings back on. Another staring between the heavy curtains out of the window.
As for the clothes, they were as luxurious and seducing as they come, from the whisper of a silk satin slip dress with its lace trim to a dream of a pink silk coat, fur-lined and looking just like the ultimate duvet you’d never take off. In between the slips and negligees with astrakhan or roomy check coats thrown over them, out came a bijou floral print on a pyjama-style jacket and below-the-knee skirt as well as a gown of a coat, belted to the waist and sequin-dipped and feather-trimmed check coats and skirt suits with platform sandals and furry bags. Actually, sleep was also part of the game here – those beds, the lingerie, Vuitton’s women and every editor in attendance badly needing it, Marc Jacobs taking his bow in his silk PJs with a print by Jake and Dinos Chapman. An insomniac collection – too much to do and too much to think about and in urgent need of a cuddle and a day in bed.
