After four jam-packed weeks across four buzzing cities, Spring/Summer 2020 fashion month has finally come to an end with a grand Louis Vuitton finale hosted in the heart of the Louvre museum. For his latest collection, Nicholas Ghesquière provided maximalist respite from a season marked by pared-back simplicity, looking to the vibrant Belle Époque era in Paris at the turn of the 19th-century when arts and culture sparkled with Art Nouveau zeal.

The show’s animated spirit wasn’t visible at the outset. Instead, guests were met with an intentionally spare show space marked by unfinished plywood and a vast, white LED wall, which upon commencement of the show, lit up with a dramatic projection of Sophie’s “It’s Okay To Cry” music video. The post-modern backdrop made a connection to the clothing’s nostalgia-for-the-future aesthetic, which was seen in the ornate embellishments, florid patterns and shapely silhouettes of pouf sleeves and cinched waists that returned to the archives of fashion history during the ‘70s. Ghesquière emphasised his retrofuturistic slant with a new Video Tape Clutch and tote bags emblazoned with stacks of VHS tapes bearing tweaked names of throwback classics. The clothing was ornate, emotive, and sculptural whilst being wearable (compared to past seasons), displaying Ghesquière’s brilliant ability to reframe our past for the future with buoyant, bright-eyed vitality.