Nicolas Ghesquière’s debut collection for Louis Vuitton was inspired

With petite-malle bags and architectural dresses Nicolas Ghesquière created a new Louis Vuitton woman and swept away the Marc Jacobs’ years.

TFT‘s remarks in stories(below) last year on Nicolas Ghesquière arriving at Louis Vuitton and the departure of Marc Jacobs from the Paris-based fashion brand resonated throughout the new LV’s designer’s brilliant new collection and in comments by the maison’s CEO Michael Burke reported in the New York Times: “Michael Burke, the chief executive of the 160-year-old company, allowed that the company’s point of view under Mr. Jacobs was “not as focused as it needed to be.”

Read Nicolas Ghesquière joins LV

Read Marc Jacobs leaves LV

“What Nicolas is going to be doing is creating a more focused vision of who the Vuitton woman is,” he said in an interview at the label’s Rue du Pont Neuf headquarters. “That’s going to be his challenge.

This is something that Marc was less focused on. Marc was more focused on the moment, not on defining a more timeless woman. Literally a few days before the show, he could completely change his mind because it was not of this week. Nicolas does not work that way.”

Exactly. What LV needs now is timeless style, not ephemeral fashion. The house has gone from its attention seeking adolescent phase to a grown-up and very convincing elegance in one sweep. The petite-malle bags that Nicolas Ghesquière conjured from the Louis Vuitton archive instantly updated what to many is a relic of a Titanic past and made it a desirable commodity that will not stay on any of Vuitton’s store shelves for long. “Today is a new day. A big day,” Ghesquière  wrote in his show notes.

“You are about to witness my first fashion show for Louis Vuitton. Words can’t express exactly how I am feeling at this moment…” But we have a few words that express what his clothes and accessories made us feel and “style” , “chic” and “highly desirable” are four of them.

…More stories like this are available in Quintessentially Asia