On Virgil Abloh's Psychedelic Trip to China for Louis Vuitton

when, last month, louis vuitton released an animated film to tease virgil Abloh's 5th collection for the luxury label, all we had was speculation about what it meant and what Virgil's latest offering for LV would be once it arrived in shanghai for its debut. my guess was that the animated characters loading themselves into the storage containers meant they represented the collection, as they were being packed up and shipped off to china, just as virgil and his new stylist, ibrahim kamara, packed up the looks and shipped them from the lv offices in paris to shanghai.

it turned out my relatively simple prediction was right, though i didn't expect them to also ship last seasons looks as well. the show opened with a remake of fw20, recast with local models. by reshowing a past season, virgil and lvmh made a strong statement that just because there's a new collection, that doesn't mean the last one has lost all its worth. showing it now also aligns with its release in stores, and china, without the restrictions of europe and the us with regards to covid lockdowns, will likely be an important market this fall. this reminder of what was probably my favorite va for lv collection to date (including ss21), I THINK THIS WAS THE SMARTEST PART OF THE SHOW, EVEN THOUGH It kind of dunked on the new collection.

​the looks weren't all the same, nor was the entire collection showed, but since vogue runway didn't post the new runway photos of the fall collection, here are some of my favorite looks from when it first showed back in january.

to see exactly how virgil and kamara re-tooled the fall collection, and then the dramatic reveal of the new collection, watch the whole presentation below.

so now let's talk about the good stuff. i mean the new stuff. as i mentioned before, i thought it was a bit overshadowed by the fall looks that preceded it. this was my first impression, after being reminded of fw20's greatness, what immediately followed was a huge left turn. a multitude of the looks felt like they would be more at home on a walter van beirendonck or thom browne runway. (Since i began writing this walter van beirendonck actually came out directly accusing abloh of copying his designs, though i think it doesn't go quite that far, this is most likely an attention-grab by wvb). gone was the sharp tailoring that made me love fw20, and in its place were restrictive-looking plastic puffers, bad joker suits, more than a few weird bunched-up flared pants, and one insane sneaker-cowboy boot hybrid. 

AS THE SHOW CONTINUED, HOWEVER, THE COLLECTION REALLY HIT ITS STRIDE. while i missed the tightness of fw20, i found myself liking way more looks than i hated, and the stuff in the middle tended to lean more good than bad. virgil continued to explore the colorful universe seen in previous collections, notably bringing back the bright pink seen last season. joining it in this collection are cobalt blue, a bright varsity red, and a fluorescent yellow, to name a few. even in the looks that i thought were a miss, the colors were always spot-on. That brings us to the good stuff. The psychedelic inspiration predicted following the teaser Video manifested not only in an explosion of color, but also came in the form of distorted checkers patterns, showing up on everything from vans-like shoes to full suits and big coats.

With the exception of the questionable pants early in the show and the few balenciaga-esque structures shoulders, the silhouettes were all there too. the tailoring that was present was solid, and with the exception of the weird pants mentioned earlier, there were great pants ranging from smart tailored to relaxed, in all kinds of colors and patterns. I even feLl for the sneaker offerings a bit, after being the biggest lv sneaker-hater of the virgil era. They feel at home in this collection when in the past i always felT they were a bit out of place, and not all that interesting.

the last notable aspect of this collection was its staging. as mentioned earlier, virgil brought lv to china, where they set up runway on an actual port, using repurposed shipping containers to symbolize their shipping of the collection to shanghai, and connect back to their teaser video. in addition to the several containers (one of which opened up midway through the show to reveal a giant screen showing the live performance of the show's score, arranged by lauryn hill) there were also giant balloon versions of the characters introduced in the teaser and which would show up in plush form throughout the collection. also, before the new collection started to walk, they were led by thanksgiving-parade-like blimps depicting, the world, a rainbow (a signature symbol seen throughout virgil's shows for lv), a butterfly-like thing (?), the number 5 (the number of seasons virgil has now overseen at lv), and a checkered LV logo, that lined the main runway on the shore.

​this all shows how virgil is making the most of helming one of the largest luxury brands in the world, taking advantage by putting on a huge performance of a show, while the european fashion weeks just struggled to drive engagement with a mostly remote experience. was this collection his best work? i'd say no. but it was one of my favorite collections of the season. the fall collection is gonna sell great thanks to the aforementioned reshowing, and it will certainly be followed by this new collection selling well too. i don't think virgil will be leaving lv anytime soon; unless someone poaches him or the world comes to an end.