The early flush of summer, between May and June, marks the arrival of the Cruise shows, a round-the-world odyssey that sees fashion brands decamp to far-flung locales to show their latest high-summer offerings (the tradition began in the early 20th century as European fashion houses began to cater for the burgeoning jet set classes).
After the Cruise 2024 shows took us to Mexico City, Los Angeles and Seoul, this season, fashion houses looked closer to home, swapping cross-continental travel for locations across Europe. First, Chanel showed in Marseille in early May on the roof of the Le Corbusier-designed Cité Radieuse, while Gucci held a blockbuster show at London’s Tate Modern later in the month. On 23 May 2024, it was the turn of Louis Vuitton, seeing Nicolas Ghesquière pay ode to Spain in Antoni Gaudí’s phantasmic Park Güell in Barcelona, followed by a Balenciaga show in Shanghai backdropped by the city’s futuristic skyline. Dior showed at the beginning of June at the historic Drummond Castle in Scotland, while Max Mara provided the season finale in Venice yesterday evening (11 June 2024).
Here, Wallpaper* picks the best of the globe-trotting Cruise 2025 shows.
Fashion odyssey: the best Cruise 2025 shows
Max Mara, Venice
Venice’s Palazzo Ducale, overlooking St Mark’s Square, provided a cinematic setting for Ian Griffiths’ latest outing at Max Mara, which looked towards the Venetian merchant Marco Polo for inspiration. Perhaps the city’s most famous resident – his name hangs over Venice airport – Polo was selected by Griffiths on the 700th anniversary of his death to encapsulate the unique magic of traversing cultures (a fitting thematic for the Cruise season, which originally centred on creating a wardrobe for world travel). So set the scene for an opulent collection which drew on Polo’s travels: from classic Max Mara camel and cashmere wools, which would have once been traded on the Silk Road, to rich brocades, embroidery and ceremonial rope fastenings and twisted headpieces. But this was also a musing on womanhood: Griffiths noted that Polo was ‘open-minded, inquisitive and tolerant’ and perhaps even an early feminist, recounting with awe in a 13th-century travelogue how Tartar women rode horses, and how an island of women in India was only visited by men for three months a year. Whether this was true of Polo or not, here, Griffiths instilled the collection with a stately, otherworldly power, making it more than stand up to the show’s dramatic surroundings.
Dior, Perthshire
In 1955, Christian Dior presented a collection in the ballroom of Scotland’s Gleneagles Hotel, continuing the designer’s longstanding fascination with the British Isles, its traditions and dress codes. Yesterday evening (3 June 2024), current creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri returned to Scotland for a Cruise 2025 show held in the grounds of Drummond Castle, the countryside seat of the Drummond family since the 15th century (in a nod to Monsieur Dior, guests stayed in the nearby Gleneagles). It began with the skirl of bagpipes as models walked from the main castle down into its famed terraced gardens, a preened Eden which contrasts with the wilder Perthshire countryside beyond. It was a juxtaposition which felt reflected in the collection: punky swathes of tartan, hearty leather boots, mutton-sleeved dresses adorned with ‘nag, hysterical, feisty’ and structured, armour-like bustier tops, met the undeniable polish and femininity of Chiuri’s Dior, figured here in nipped-waist lace gowns, tulle skirts and delicate veils dotted with dew-like drops of pearl. It was completed with a nod to the past, seeing photographs from Christian Dior’s 1955 show in Scotland adorning jackets and T-shirts ’in a kind of cinematic montage’. ‘The presentation of the Cruise collection is an opportunity to follow the footsteps of Christian Dior around the world,’ said Chiuri.
Balenciaga, Shanghai
The futuristic cityscape of Shanghai provided the backdrop for Demna’s latest Balenciaga outing, a Spring 2025 resort collection which was presented at nightfall at the Jean Nouvel-designed Museum of Art Padong (in a nod to the city’s cuisine, the invitation was a ceramic xioalongbao bun in a traditional bamboo steamer). As the show began, a number of the city’s skyscrapers lit up neon with the Balenciaga logo, while the silhouettes in the collection itself were similarly vertiginous, seeing models teeter on super-sized platforms in elongated trenches and overcoats, their hemlines drifting below the line of the heel (in flats, they would have dragged along the floor). Elsewhere, Demna’s idiosyncratic riffs on quotidian garments continued, spanning sporty separates supersized or shrunken (a collaboration with Under Armour was debuted, available directly after the show) and a dishevelled play on the uniform of the Parisian bourgeois, here conjured in body-wrapping blanket dresses, chain-link bags, faux-fur coats and ripped and laddered stockings. It ended – as has become tradition with Demna’s ready-to-wear collections – with a flourish of ballgowns, inspired by those in the house’s archive. This time, they twisted around the body like crumpled golden paper, or came replete with bows and feathers. Another was adorned with handfuls of glimmering jewellery – a wink, perhaps, to the city’s wealthy, high-rolling denizens.
Louis Vuitton, Barcelona
Nicolas Ghesquière’s latest Cruise collection for Louis Vuitton paid ode to Spain and its leading creative figures, an expansive list which spanned its great artists – he name-checked Velázquez, Goya and Zurbarán – to director Luis Buñuel and the futurist fashion designer Paco Rabanne. It was set against the backdrop of the phantasmic Park Güell on Barcelona’s Carmel Hill, a twisting, dreamlike landscape – replete with fairytale towers and colourful mosaic murals – by Spain’s most famous architect, Antoni Gaudí, long a draw for visitors to the city (in 1984 it was designated a Unesco World Heritage Site). ‘An architectural utopia,’ described Louis Vuitton of the choice of location, which continues a tradition of Ghesquière showing his Cruise collections in places of architectural significance, from the UFO-like former home of Bob Hope by John Lautner in Palm Springs to the equally futuristic Niterói Contemporary Art Museum by Oscar Niemeyer in Rio de Janeiro.
Shown in the Hypostyle Room of the park – imagined by Gaudí as a marketplace, the classically-inspired colonnade features 86 striated columns and a dramatic mosaic ceiling – the collection itself was described as ‘embracing the country’s passionate character… the fervour of its colours, its loyalty to tradition elevated into artistic expression.’ Tilted wide-brimmed hats, a motif which ran throughout, recalled the traditional cordobés, while layers of sheer polka dots and undulating ruffled gowns referenced flamenco-wear (albeit in Ghesquière’s typically postmodern style). References to Gaudí came in material which appeared to be made from shattered mosaic, while the abundant twisting, taffeta drapes of the show’s closing looks paid homage to the rich depictions of cloth in the work of the Spanish masters.
Gucci, London
‘I owe a lot to this city,’ said Gucci’s Sabato De Sarno as he presented his debut Cruise collection for the house yesterday evening in London, choosing the Herzog & de Meuron-designed Tanks in London’s Tate Modern as the setting. ‘It has welcomed and listened to me. The same is true for Gucci, whose founder was inspired by his experience there,’ he continued, referring to Guccio Gucci’s time at the Savoy Hotel as a porter, which would eventually lead to him creating an eponymous luggage line on his return to Florence, Italy in 1921.
Here, the vast subterranean concrete space was filled for the occasion with 10,000 plants – a clash which he described as one of ‘man and nature, sentimental versus minimal’, the ‘bare concrete Tanks invaded by a poetic panorama of greenery’. The idea of dichotomy ran through the collection itself – De Sarno cited Gucci’s ‘limitless capability to put together contrasts, make them converse, and find ways to coexist’ – with pieces which straddled a mood of delicacy and toughness, seeing romantic pussybow blouses worn with baggy distressed denim, or skirts decorated with intricate floral embroidery combined with chunky creeper-style versions of the house’s horsebit loafer. Meanwhile nods to Britishness came in oversized Harrington jackets, Prince of Wales check overcoats and a play on the Mackintosh raincoat.
Most striking, though, were the flourishes of craft: a matching jacket and skirt were adorned with a grid of thousands of gently clattering hanging beads, while fronds of glimmering tassels emerged from denim jeans. Or the laser-cut organza chamomile flowers, each assembled delicately by hand. ‘This is another piece of me, more romantic, more contradictory,’ said De Sarno. ‘I like taking something that we think we know and breaking away.’
Chanel, Marseille
Chanel travelled southwards for its latest Cruise show, choosing Marseille, the ancient port city that has long been a raw-around-the-edges counterpart to the more glossy Riviera cities of St Tropez and Cannes eastwards along the coastline. Creative director Virginie Viard said this was purposeful, part of a desire to expand the cultural impact of Chanel beyond the rarefied Rue Cambon in Paris and the high-earning locales with which it is most associated (it was also the reason the house chose Manchester’s cobbled streets for its Métiers d'Art show in December 2023, which was inspired by the energy of the city’s underground music scene). The setting here was Cité Radieuse, Le Corbusier’s 1952-completed ’vertical city’, recognisable for its monolithic concrete exterior punctuated with vivid moments of colour on its balconies (such is its architectural impact, Le Corbusier’s modular, utopian vision for living has since been designated a Unesco World Heritage site).
Viard chose the concrete-clad rooftop – the rain just about holding off – to present a collection largely defined by a sense of youthful ease, a hallmark of the designer’s tenure so far. There were breezy white blouses with broderie anglais motifs, colourful crochet mini dresses and spongy-soled flip-flops, while playful nautical motifs ran throughout – from anchor-charm jewellery to hand-drawn fish and plays on wetsuits and diving hoods. Signature Chanel tweed was of course in abundance: here shot through with Le Corbusier-inspired colour, like a grid-like design on a cropped tweed jacket and matching skirt, or a boldly-hued pinafore-style sleeveless blazer in shades of red, yellow and optic white. ‘Marseille is a city that puts me in touch with my emotions. I tried to capture its power of attraction, its breath of fresh air, and to convey the energy that reigns there,’ said Viard. ‘And you couldn't ask for a better backdrop to a runway show than the Cité Radieuse.’
Stay tuned for more from the Cruise 2025 season on wallpaper.com.
