Louis Vuitton Cruise 2027 Is A Tale Of Two Cities

An evening on Manhattan’s Upper East Side can feel pretty glamorous any night of the week. But Louis Vuitton upped the ante on Wednesday with its art-filled Cruise 2027 show in an architectural landmark right off Fifth Avenue.

The brand welcomed a varied celebrity crowd — including Emma Stone, Zendaya, Hoyeon, Emily Blunt, Anne Hathaway, Chloe Sevigny, plus new ambassador Chase Infiniti — to the Frick Collection, the Gilded Age mansion-turned-art museum filled with Fragonards, Vermeers, and Goyas. It marked a return for Louis Vuitton, which staged its Cruise 2020 runway show in New York City back in May 2019. Nicolas Ghesquière managed to do the near-impossible then: convince people to go to the airport despite not having to take a flight. (Granted, it was to visit the iconic, landmarked Eero Saarinen-designed TWA Flight Center at JFK Airport, which would reopen mere days later as a hotel.) One can imagine this week’s event was an easier ask.

Ghesquière has historically demonstrated his love of art and design through his Cruise collections, particularly through the venues. Last year, he chose the Palais de Papes in Avignon; prior to that, it was the Dali-designed Park Güell in Barcelona. Other memorable settings include the Niterói Contemporary Art Museum in Rio de Janeiro (2017), the Miho Museum outside of Kyoto (2018), and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in San Diego (2023). Beyond simply becoming the first brand to host a fashion show in its first-floor galleries, Louis Vuitton committed to a three-year partnership with the Frick Collection, sponsoring its First Fridays program (where people can access the museum for free on the first Friday of most months) through May 2027, a two-year curatorial position, and three upcoming exhibits, including this fall’s Siena: The Art of Bronze and the first show dedicated to French enameler Suzanne de Court, set to debut in spring 2027.

Though you might expect the Cruise 2027 collection to mirror the European art hanging on the walls, it seems that Ghesquière instead chose to imagine the wardrobe of a contemporary city dweller, maybe even a student or connoisseur, who might pop by the museum to get those creative juices flowing. Someone who would wear a marled knit with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows tucked into baggy jeans, who would tie both a chambray shirt at the hips and a zebra-print belt at the waist, who would pair their Western-inspired leather moto with a ruffled denim mini skirt, who tops off every outfit with a statement hat.

Ghesquière reimagines his signatures — strong shoulders, big sleeves, tactile fabrics, metallics, abbreviated hemlines — through this lens, while incorporating pieces that call to mind other mediums we might encounter in a gallery. (Think: graphic-printed trompe l’oeil jeans, mismatched leather paneling, sequined netting, colorful jacquards, and textured silly string-esque knits.)

In the show notes, the brand described the assortment as “a tale of two cities… [forging] connection — between the distinct identities and realities of Paris and New York, and between the cities within that city, its dichotomies, its dualities.” New York is “an amalgamation,” it continues, of different identities, eras, and references, resulting in “beautiful contradiction, perfect differences.” As a backdrop to the show, the Frick Collection represents that European refinement and savoir-faire Louis Vuitton is known for, within an American context.

There’s still a direct tie-in to the art world: Louis Vuitton is collaborating with the estate of Keith Haring this season. (In the lead-up to the show, the brand shared an image of one of its leather suitcases that the seminal graphic artist drew on with marker in 1984.) Though it has a history of working with visual artists on ready-to-wear and accessories — most famously, Yayoi Kusama, Stephen Sprouse, and Takashi Murakami — the contemporary artist is a surprising choice. Not only does his work belong to a different period than the rest of the Frick Collection (which ranges from 14th to 19th centuries), but his signature drawings are quite ubiquitous in fashion. (In the last decade alone, Coach, Alice & Olivia, Uniqlo, Boss, FitFlop, Lacoste, and H&M have released Haring-inspired products.) They now appear across Louis Vuitton Alma and Speedy bags, shift dresses, tops, jackets, shoes, and earrings.

“Different connections, unexpected intersections,” the notes continue. “Within the clothes, different eras and identities of New York co-exist, as they do in the fabric of the city itself… Modern figures move, like ghosts of the future, to disrupt these spaces reminiscent of the past. In the end, all may belong here.”

The Haring-ified pieces might be the big commercial play of the season, but the strongest looks of the collection lean into the retro-futuristic idiosyncrasies Ghesquière does best — a glossy quilted collarless blazer dress with a gauzy glittery train pouring out from the hem, a cinched-waist creamy white leather jacket styled with black trousers, a voluminously three-dimensional pleated graphic floral top paired with a lilac satin mini skirt, a high-neck cape with a similar motif teamed with high-waisted slim-fit corduroys. These are the ideas that compel someone like Zendaya to change into the just-off-the-runway samples before leaving the venue (which… she actually did, swapping her custom off-the-shoulder grey mini for a black matte leather moto jacket and glossy yellow boxing shorts).

This year’s Cruise shows prove just how focused European luxury houses are on courting U.S. customers. Louis Vuitton caps off a whirlwind week of fashion that started with fellow LVMH property Dior in LA before moving cross-country for Kering-owned Gucci in New York City. (Chanel proved to be the exception by debuting its Cruise 2027 collection in Biarritz, though Matthieu Blazy chose NYC, too, for his first Métiers d’art show back in December.) Between the runway and partnership with the Frick Collection, plus its recently-opened five-story store on 57th Street that’s simply keeping the spot warm for an even bigger flagship, the brand is sending a clear message: Louis Vuitton aime New York.