Louis Vuitton's Nicolas Ghesquière Breaks Down His Fashion Career

You have to have this craving for new things in the world.

They are not only artistic things.

It could be a movie, that could be a trip,

curiosity for other people,

and it's the way you transform that into fashion

into clothes.

It's the best way a collection start

is to be aware and curious about what is surrounding you

in this world.

Hi, I'm Nicolas Ghesquière,

and this is the timeline of my career.

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I joined Jean Paul Gaultier in 1990.

It was a dream come true for me.

I went there and I show my drawings at the time

that was really fashion teen's drawing and they liked it.

So I get hired and they gave me my first job.

Fashion in the nineties was a crazy place,

especially in Paris.

It was a job for strange people I would say,

for people with strange visions

and being with Jean Paul Gaultier

was being in the heart of the game.

It was the place to be.

The most desirable job in fashion at the time.

So it was absolutely amazed to be there

in the middle of this incredible creative studio.

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I joined Balenciaga in 1995

as what was called a licensed designer.

So it was designing clothes for different countries,

Asia, South America, and they were not,

let's say the most prestigious collection.

So it was designing bridles for renting.

I was designing the collection in Japan

there was called black roses there was for widows.

One day in 1997, so they offer me temporary,

the big job of artistic director,

but just for six months.

They told me at Balenciaga, they were looking

for someone famous and they wanted me to to do

the in between jobs.

So to design the collection just for one time.

Of course, I agree.

Then I took the job and eventually I stayed for 15 years.

I was young, I was 25 when I first started,

and I think I was 27 when I get the big job.

It was a brand that had disappeared

from the fashion landscape for many years,

probably since Cristóbal Balenciaga

stopped his brand in 1968.

So to be responsible for that rebirth

is probably one of the thing I'm the most proud about

if I can say in my career, yeah.

So I was named Womenswear Designer at the CFDA.

Yeah, in 2001.

And I was 30 years old.

I remember flying in New York

and at the time the CFTA was a competition.

We were three nominated, and I was nominated

with Karl Lagerfeld and I was nominated

with Alexander McQueen, and I remember going there thinking,

Wow that's great trip going to New York for a few days.

I'm going to enjoy myself,

but there is no way I'm going to win.

So I was surrounded by incredible people,

and it's always very impressive to be in America.

You know, there was a lot of stars and a lot of designers.

And then my name was said, and I have to say

that this is something that I will never forget

because the recognition so early,

the recognition of this industry of people that I admire

that were physically around me in that room

was something that was unique and so unexpected

that they recognize very early my work

and that was very special with my relationship

with the American audience and public

that they were very quick in recognizing

what I was doing at Balenciaga.

Sometimes quicker than European strangely,

so I'm always very thankful for that, yes.

The Lariat bag had many names.

It says a lot about how much people love that bag

because they were making them our thing.

Very exclusive and very personal.

I designed that bag like quite early.

It came out in 2001 officially, but it was on a shelf

in my studio for at least a year.

That bag was asked because everyone

was doing bags obviously, and they told me at Balenciaga,

just try one, just like have fun.

You can try to design a bag.

So I did that bag and I put it in the studio,

and I remember especially K Tomas at the time

walking through the studio for a fitting

and look at this little thing in the corner of the room

and said, This is a really cool bag.

I really want to wear that bag.

And I remember Chloe Sevigny or so

like coming to Paris, she saw the bag, the same.

So I realize that maybe it was time

to try to distribute that bag.

So I think we manufactured 20 the first time,

and put them in the Parisian store.

And I sent a few bags for my friends to wear,

the one who had the desire to wear it, Kate, Chloe,

and some other French editors,

and international editors at the time,

and then it became a success quite instantly.

It was crazy the reaction that the world of fashion

and the customer had for that bag,

demanding that bag to every department store

around the world, and it can become phenomenal.

If I did not have designed that bag at the time,

I would have never become

an artistic director at Louis Vuitton

This is really where I show that I could design more

than clothes, that I could design handbags,

that I could design shoes, that I could do jewelry,

that I could design a full silhouette,

that my vision was complete.

That bag became a timeless item.

And it's very very special when you have something

that survive that long in fashion

and become a new iconic classic.

So I'm very proud of that, yeah.

That's my introduction to dressing Hollywood

and to dress for red carpet.

And it was with Jennifer Connelly.

And I had to be in Japan at the time for work,

I have a Japanese breakfast in a hotel room

with some colleague, and then we are watching

the Oscars on TV and she won.

My phone starts ringing.

It was New York Times, everyone was calling,

everyone wanted a quote,

everyone wants to speak about the dress.

So the day after was a different experience.

That was a terrible contrast between the appreciation

of the dress and people who loved it so much,

and some who hated it so much.

So I learned a lot about like what became

such very harsh judgment for actresses around the world

with their dress, but some people said it was a mop

and some of them said it was a brilliant and excellent

and such a new proposition for red carpet,

that it was a game changer,

and somebody else said it was trash,

and it was a shame to design that kind of dress

for the awards.

So I was really experiencing a mixed feeling

of judgment, and yeah, and then I was ready to do many more.

So in 2013, when I was at called to join the house

of Louis Vuitton, in a year where I had decided

to stop for two seasons, which is very long in fashion,

to stop to work for two seasons.

You skip one show, it's already complicated,

you skip two shows, you feel you are an outsider.

And so when Vuitton call me and said,

Okay, we would like you to become the artistic director.

I was really in awe, because it's a house I admire

for many years and it was so, it was a huge step for me.

My first vision at Vuitton was the fact

that we needed to define an aesthetic

that was functional because Louis Vuitton

is very functional, luxurious,

because of obviously, it's emblematic

from what is the ultimate luxury.

That was what I wanted to say.

But also their choice to hire me was also

to play the game of fashion.

They didn't want it something timeless only,

or something that was classical.

They wanted a true proposition,

and I think Mark Jacobs did an incredible work for 16 years,

and to be asked to be the second designer at Vuitton

after Mark was already a great honor.

My vision was really to develop the wardrobe

that was going to grow season after season.

The pressure was very high obviously,

but I try to stay very quiet,

and I remember walking that room

and feeling something very warm and nice.

And people were like addressing something

very positive to me, like they missed me,

they missed my work, they missed my point of view,

they were happy to see what I have to say

that day for my first day, my first show at Louis Vuitton.

The first bag is designed for Louis Vuitton it called

the Petite Malle.

It's kind of the miniature of a trunk.

I went for lunch with Bernard Arnault

and we were talking about my vision for Louis Vuitton.

I said, You know, it's funny, my intuition is telling me

that we should make a version of the traveling trunk,

but in a smaller way for a woman to carry

during her day, during her nights,

something that is super functional

but had the values of the house that says in one look

this is Louis Vuitton.

And he loved that idea.

Sometimes I'm wondering if I get the job

because of that idea only.

Not now obviously, but I think there was really

a deal for him, a click.

It was like, okay, the guy has a vision that is interesting

for the brand.

Petit Malle is a good luck, good luck item for me today.

There is not one show without a Petite Malle.

We designed like a few new proposition every season,

and people love it.

Some people collect them,

there's people that have like hundreds of them.

This is very impressive.

I have a lot of love for that first design

for Louis Vuitton.

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So on May 14, 2017, I was in Kyoto presenting my

Cruise Collection in a wonderful museum

called the Miho Museum in middle of the green valley.

This is an extraordinary landscape,

and we choose that location for our Cruise show

at Louis Vuitton.

600 guests were flying from all over the world at the time.

Celebrating Japan was one of my favorite place to be,

Japanese culture, so rich, and so it was an intense moment.

It was a very full moment, inspiring,

inspired with friends and a lot of people.

We had a great show.

It's always very incredible to be able to travel

with a collection for a Cruise show.

We did a few, we did one in Rio,

we did one in New York, we did one in Palm Spring,

and so every time it's a great experience

to carry the collection somewhere else

and to make a different proposition

than the fashion week in Paris.

So in Kyoto that day, it was a great moment of joy,

but what was happening in Paris in fact

was an extreme joy too because it was the investiture

of Emmanuel Macron and Brigitte Macron was wearing

for the second time my outfit for this investiture.

And she walked the courtyard of the Elysee Palace

with my outfit to what was waiting for her

is to become a First Lady.

So I will always remember that moment

when we were in the middle

of this crazy extravagant fashion show in Kyoto,

and on the other side of the planet,

Brigitte Macron was becoming First Lady in my outfit.

I enjoy so much dressing Bridget Macron.

She's a very charismatic and solar person,

someone very generous, so inspiring to dress,

and so she approached me to work with her

or to talk with her about her look

a few months before Emmanuel Macron

was going to become candidate

for the presidential election in France.

So it was an honor to help her,

she doesn't really need help, to be honest,

she has a divine taste and this is not only getting dressed,

this is representing an industry

that is making a lot of jobs

and creating a lot of economy and Brigitte is very aware

and responsible and she wants to promote this,

and for someone like me, of course,

it's very enjoyable to see her supporting our industry

so much.

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Louis Vuitton has been a partner and the sponsorship

for the Louvre museum in Paris for many years.

They proposed us to show inside the museum,

which was a first ever, no one has ever done

obviously a fashion show in the museum.

So I was super, you know, super happy to be asked.

We are able to pick up the place we wished to show,

so this is quite, you know, special.

It could be complicated to confront, you know,

fashion to the most beautiful art around the world,

but, again, what's beautiful, it's the atmosphere,

it's to see, you know, you do a show in between,

you know, the culture or the paintings

and the way there is a response, there is an environment

that is about art, and it's great.

You know, it's, I'm not afraid of an acronym in my show.

I'm not afraid to mix different period of times together,

and to sometimes make a strange proposition in my clothes

when it can look like a costume

or it could look like a like a futuristic outfit,

you know, and it's really, I think something

that is very emblematic of my work.

So yeah, I mean, being in the most,

one of the most beautiful museum in the world

for the fashion show makes sense.

It's incredible to do that.

Yeah, if I knew when I was a kid visiting the museum,

that a one day would show inside the Louvre,

it would have been like, no, never it's never gonna happen.

And, yeah, it's real.

So yeah, that's cool.

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I was very curious about virtual reality, anticipation,

and that's something that I have integrated

in my work very early on in my career, in my design.

So it was quite natural at some point to go

to the virtual world and to collaborate

with the virtual world.

The story first started with Lightening,

the character of Final Fantasy, that became

a Louis Vuitton ambassador in my campaign few years ago.

So that was my introduction finally to this world

and also to say to the people that we were going

to create virtual outfit for virtual character

in the same time like obviously we were doing real design.

So Lightning was a great start,

and it was fascinating to collaborate, to give the clothes,

to design the clothes with the studio in Tokyo

and and to see the clothes in movement digitalized.

So that was my first approach,

and then later on, when League of Legends approached us

to design for Senile and Cana a special outfit

for the games, I said yes right away.

Because of the pandemic and because of the situation

around the world, I have decided last year

to shoot the campaign myself and to,

in a very humble way,

I have decided to become a photographer,

which is a big challenge.

I have this relation with models, with talents,

with actress for many years,

and they are very important in my aesthetic,

and I thought it was interesting to try

to not only to dress them, but to capture this emotion,

this phase, this body language that I know so well,

working with them, and try to reflect that in a picture.

So I started that a few months ago, and I enjoy it so much.

I mean, again, I've been working with like incredible talent

and incredible photographers for years,

so I knew exactly this is a serious job

and you need to have certain assets.

So I'm doing it in a very spontaneous way

but I enjoy it so much,

and I learned a lot, and I love,

this is a different relationship when someone

is on the other side of the camera,

and you trying to capture what you think you know from them

or what you know from them, and I love this,

the fact to share that emotion, taking picture.

So I'm going to shoot my third campaign now.

So I guess, you know, it's a great new hobby I would say,

or new passion I'm having now in my career.

So I'm really looking forward to do more pictures, yes.

I think now the way fashion

is becoming responsible is very important.

I'm talking about reflecting the world of today.

Sustainability, obviously inclusivity.

There is so much people that are curious and interested

into fashion for the last decade.

We have to grab that moment and don't let it go

and communicate messages that are very positive

and make things evolve.

So I think this is a responsibility in a way that we have.

So it's the way I see things for me

and for Louis Vuitton obviously.

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