The staff at one of London’s most famous hotels may allow themselves a discreetly cocked eyebrow when they see how one of their regular guests has interpreted its comings and goings. Backstage at Louis Vuitton’s lavish set yesterday, Marc Jacobs said that the idea for the mise-en-scène “came from my experience at Claridge’s”.
He added: “Hotel living — I love it when I see these exquisite creatures coming out of the elevator. Some of them maids, hookers, mistresses ... it’s very interesting to see who leaves hotels at what time, and what they’re wearing.”
Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss presumably came as themselves. Claridge’s is, after all, the latter’s favourite hotel and the venue for that infamous 30th birthday party of hers that supposedly ended in a multiple group love-in.
Moss looked nervous, as you do when you haven’t been on a catwalk much for a decade and you’re wearing a rubberised lace jacket, double-faced cashmere big knickers, a pavé diamond in your hair and crocodile lace-up boots at 10am. But then she lit a cigarette and one section of the audience applauded as if she’d discovered the cure, rather than the cause of cancer, so presumably she felt right back at home.
There were three cage elevators, with bellboys, which delivered model after model in pastiches of what Jacobs refers to as Hotel Living: 67 models in all. Cutbacks, what cutbacks? Revenue for LVMH’s leather goods arm, of which Louis Vuitton is the biggest label, rose 20 per cent to €7.58 billion last year.
Advertisement
There were models tricked out as receptionists, in adorably demure calf-length 1930s dresses with little patent Peter Pan collars; models dressed as chauffeurs in every chauffeur’s essential piece of clothing — leather, lace-cropped jodhpurs; models as old-fashioned trophy wives in deliciously classy wool bouclé and tweed suits consisting of close-fitting jackets with a kick pleat at the back, and circular calf length skirts.
The hookers presumably were the models wearing similar versions but in transparent black mesh, with crystal handcuffs.
The laced booties will sell and sell. The bags promise geyser-like spurts of revenue too; in exotic skins or sheepskin, subdued hues or sunshine yellow, understated clutches or large totes, there was pretty much something for most tastes and, with apologies to Campbell and Moss, they were probably the real money shot.
Miuccia Prada delivered the last show of the month for her other line Miu-Miu, and one of the loveliest. It was womanly in the best sense, with late 1930s to 1940s silk dresses with dandelion prints or gold and silver beading. If Wallis Simpson floats your sartorial boat, this is the collection to lust after.