GOING DEEP

For a decade, Nicolas Ghesquière's Louis Vuitton has thought big globally bigwith its mix of historic narrative and futuristic vision. Fashion still holds a powerful sway for Ghesquière-but so too, he tells NATHAN HELLER, does a life far, far away from work. Portraits

- JUSTINE TRIET

When Nicolas Ghesquière presented his autumn/winter show in a courtyard of the Louvre in March, it was with a view not only forward but a long way back. The collection marked a full decade as artistic director at Louis Vuitton, an impressive tenure by any standard and an exceptional one at a moment when creative turnover in the fashion industry seems to accelerate every year. But it also made a claim for the unity of Ghesquière’s vision over a period when, it could be said, little else in the world held. Down the runway that day came an allusive tour of Ghesquière’s previous collections—shift dresses and turtlenecks, It bags and frock coats. “There’s a maturation of his ideas across collections, but really across seasons,” as the filmmaker Ava DuVernay, a frequent guest at Ghesquière’s shows, puts it. “The ideas have had a journey—and a life.”

Then, a couple of months later, Ghes quière assembled a cast of models in his studio and—in the rhythm of his own life over the past decade—prepared to do it all again.

“Hi, Sacha!” he exclaims as the model Sacha Quenby enters and begins to stride down a test runway in the middle of the room. Ghesquière sits with his close deputies: casting director Ashley Brokaw; the house’s design and image director, Florent Buonomano; and Marie-Amélie Sauvé, the stylist and editor who has been Ghesquière’s collaborator for some 30 years.

“Did you enjoy China?” Ghesquière asks Quenby, who had walked in his show in Shanghai the previous month.

“It was fun,” she says, while making another march down the runway.

Ghesquière turns to his team. “Pretty, no?”

“Beautiful,” says Sauvé.

“The flowers will look great,” he says. His anniversary show brought 4,000 guests to the Louvre but was seen by an estimated half a billion people online.