- 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.
[lo-fi music]
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.
[lo-fi music]
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.
[lo-fi music]
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.
[lo-fi music]
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.
[lo-fi music]
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.
[lo-fi music]