This article titled “Flying colours: aviation and Rajasthan inspire Louis Vuitton show” was written by Hannah Marriott, for The Guardian on Thursday 26th June 2014 18.25 UTC
Louis Vuitton is the most famous luxury brand in the world; its customers are Platinum Club frequent flyers. So it makes sense that Men's style director Kim Jones takes inspiration from travel each season. For spring 2015 – a collection shown as part of Paris men's fashion week on Thursday – his theme was Rajasthan, a starting point that took him to silk boilersuits, satin bomber jackets and the silhouettes of the 1970s.
Tight, white rollneck jumpers were worn under slim, double-breasted suits; brightly-coloured, zigzag patterned shirts were tucked into high-waisted trousers. Colours from the decade such as khaki, brown and beige were updated with thick stripes of neon pink or orange. All the outfits were worn with springy-soled white and occasionally black trainers, adding a touch of the 1990s to the mix.
Standout pieces included a silk boiler suit in neon pink and another in denim – embellished, using a classic Indian technique, with hundreds of tiny mirrors. Aviation was a clear theme, also nodded to in round-lensed, cross bridge sunglasses. The luxurious-looking bomber jackets, shown in orange, navy and sage, were decorated with pilots' badges depicting a military sundial and Louis Vuitton's menswear slogan of the season: "volez, voguez, voyagez".
Speaking after the show, Jones explained that he was inspired by "the relationship between the maharajas and Louis Vuitton in the 1920s. They were producing a lot of trunks for the maharajas, which was an interesting thing, so I went to India and looked at the way people were wearing their clothes." There, he was struck by the colours ("as Diana Vreeland said, 'pink is the navy blue of India'"), and by "the way people wear their clothes – it's kind of a 70s vibe with a high waist and a wider leg".
The concept of flying came from the maharajas: "Lots of them were among the first to fly and historically they were [walking] around in their flying suits."
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