Zendaya, Emma Stone and Saoirse Ronan led the star-studded arrivals at Louis Vuitton’s futuristic show to close Paris Fashion Week.
The trio were joined by French first lady Brigitte Macron at the Cour Carree of the Louvre, where creative director Nicolas Ghesquiere had transformed the historic courtyard into a surreal racetrack.
Zendaya, a Louis Vuitton ambassador, wore her newly cropped pixie hairstyle, which she debuted at the Emmy Awards in September, while fellow ambassador Stone arrived in a plunging teal blazer and matching shorts.
Sinners star Wunmi Mosaku, Chloe Grace Moretz, Chloe Sevigny, Rivals actress Bella Maclean and Jaden Smith were also seated front row.
The French fashion house called the racetrack-inspired set a vision of a “future in suspension”, fitting for a designer who has spent much of his career mixing references to the past with a science fiction-esque approach to what clothes might look like next.
Travel is particularly loaded territory at Louis Vuitton. The house began in 1854 as a trunk-making business, long before it sold ready-to-wear, and its founder made his name producing flat-topped trunks that could be stacked for journeys.
For spring 2027, Ghesquiere – who has led Louis Vuitton womenswear since 2013 – appeared interested in where that journey might go next.
The 48-look collection began almost entirely in white.
Lightweight shift dresses, some sheer enough to reveal another layer underneath, fluttered as models crossed the open-air runway. Draped dresses appeared deliberately twisted and pulled off-centre, while shirts and jackets were sliced and folded into asymmetric shapes.
There were flashes of butter yellow and powder blue, and the opening looks were grounded with heavy-looking, black lace-up brogues.
Knee-length hemlines were everywhere – another silhouette to have emerged repeatedly from the SS27 shows – appearing on slips, skirts and dresses.
There were plenty of other familiar trends from the season too. Scoop necklines, sheer mesh and camisoles continued this season’s preoccupation with underwear as outerwear, while skirts layered over trousers and long, trailing cardigans recalled the deliberately complicated styling of the Noughties.
Then things stopped looking backwards and started looking forward.
Models appeared in silver fringed visors that covered their eyes, while transparent dresses were scattered with angular, reflective shards in pink, purple and silver. The mirrored embellishments looked almost like broken pieces of a futuristic windscreen.
Ghesquiere is known for his retro-futurism, and this was perhaps the clearest expression of it: clothes that borrowed from several decades at once while still looking slightly difficult to place in time.
The futuristic touches were mixed with much more familiar wardrobe staples. Leather biker jackets came in caramel, lemon and dark brown, while long driving coats, bomber jackets and sharply cut tailoring brought the racetrack setting back into the clothes.
Even Louis Vuitton’s famous monogram was given the motoring treatment, appearing across bags and dark brown leather jackets.
In other looks, the tailoring loosened considerably. Jackets and tops became almost weightless, some falling asymmetrically around the body, while wide-leg trousers, capes and trailing panels of fabric moved behind the models as they walked.
It was the eveningwear that proved to be some of the collection’s best pieces.
Long silks and gauzy layers cascaded around the body, sometimes continuing into fabric that trailed along the ground. One ivory look was embroidered with shimmering detailing and worn over loose matching trousers, while monochrome dresses combined abstract prints with fluid layers underneath.
The closing looks returned to black and white, including long, loose tailoring and dresses worn over trousers.
Despite the concept cars and sci-fi eyewear, Ghesquiere’s future seems surprisingly hopeful. There was far more fabric floating in the wind than there was hard-edged space-age armour, with shimmer, transparency and pale colour running through much of the collection.
Louis Vuitton described the collection as “driven by possibility”, and the designer seemed to be imagining progress as something light rather than dystopian.
Ghesquiere emerged at the end in jeans, a white T-shirt and jacket, walking the same racetrack with his hands casually tucked into his pockets.
As he passed the front row, however, he briefly broke stride to lean over and kiss Macron on the cheek before continuing his victory lap.
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