This morning, Nicolas Ghesquière presented Louis Vuitton’s Cruise 2025 collection at Antoni Gaudí’s Park Güell, shifting from the quiet serenity of Isola Bella to the energetic pulse of Barcelona. Completed in 1914, the UNESCO World Heritage site is a feat of fantastical creativity amid the hustle and bustle of the city’s centre. In his ten years at Louis Vuitton, Ghesquière has always leaned into a similar contrast.

We saw this immediately in tilted Gaucho hats, natural tones and raffia styled with reflective sport sunglasses and holographic-like boots that poured through the cavernous halls of the Hypostyle Room. As is signature with a Ghesquière collection, powerful silhouettes were instantly present in ’80s shoulders, sharp tailoring, asymmetrical skirts and exaggerated shift dresses with collars seemingly hovering around the nape.

“I love that this country is evocating a certain groundedness and some rigour, and in the meantime, it’s about freedom, it’s about youngness, it’s about an extravagance somehow,” he said of the menagerie of influences that found a place in the collection. As well as the city itself, the creatives that have called it home were front of mind for the creative director, specifically 19th-century local painters like Velazquez, Goya and Zurbarán, whose artistic references showed up in voluptuous sheaths and moodier tones than we’re used to from the brand.

Elsewhere, jodhpur pants and fuzzed riding boots brought unexpected equine elements, but this was as pragmatic as the collection got. Where many designers see the Cruise season as an opportunity to embrace a more lax approach to design, Ghesquière didn’t hold back on the glamour. “It’s quite dressed up,” he admitted. “There’s nothing casual about it.”

Though the show kicked off with structurally refined silhouettes and understated neutral sets, the show came to a rising crescendo with voluminous dresses rendered in glorious gem tones, a nod to the host country’s vibrant spirit. Of course, the collection was still tethered by his stirring perspective. While many have noted Ghesquière’s knack for translating elements of futurism into a unique contemporary language, it’s the optimism with which the designer appears to view the world and its future that comes through in his work. Instead of the ‘Post-apocalyptic-chic’, we’re often served as fashion’s prophetic projections; we’re served a melting pot of buoyant ideas filtered into a singular vision for dressing. In fact, it excites one for the journey ahead, which is exactly what the ‘spirit of travel’ is all about.

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