Louis Vuitton Pays Homage to Barcelona Architect Antoni Gaudí in 2025 Cruise Collection 

A model wears a creation by Louis Vuitton during a fashion show for the Cruise 2025 collection in the Park Güell in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, May 23, 2024. (AP)
A model wears a creation by Louis Vuitton during a fashion show for the Cruise 2025 collection in the Park Güell in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, May 23, 2024. (AP)
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Louis Vuitton Pays Homage to Barcelona Architect Antoni Gaudí in 2025 Cruise Collection 

A model wears a creation by Louis Vuitton during a fashion show for the Cruise 2025 collection in the Park Güell in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, May 23, 2024. (AP)
A model wears a creation by Louis Vuitton during a fashion show for the Cruise 2025 collection in the Park Güell in Barcelona, Spain, Thursday, May 23, 2024. (AP)

Louis Vuitton unveiled its latest fashion designs at Barcelona’s Park Güell on Thursday, providing the clothes with drama to finally match Antoni Gaudí’s architectural masterpiece.

Nicolas Ghesquiere’s ambitions for the Parisian house’s 2025 Cruise collection were unveiled before an A-list crowd, including actresses Ana de Armas, Jennifer Connelly and Saoirse Ronan.

Louis Vuitton usually unveils its ready-to-wear collections in the French capital, while choosing exotic and attention-grabbing locations for its destination cruise collections.

Where tourists tread daily in tank tops, shorts and flip flops, this UNESCO World Heritage Site for one night was home to cutting-edge garments that blended with its earthly tones that are at once organic and yet seemingly ethereal.

The models weaved their way through the 86 Doric columns that hold up a vaulted square in the center of the park that overlooks Barcelona and the Mediterranean Sea in the distance.

The show notes said Ghesquiere had been inspired by Gaudí’s “legacy in constant mutation” and Spain’s rich artistic heritage.

“As if in homage to such opulent purity, the Maison’s rigorous spirit embraces the country’s passionate character,” the notes read. “The fervor of its colors, its loyalty to tradition elevated into artistic expression, dark and light that never appear contradictory.”

Dramatic silhouettes contrasted with the soft curves of Gaudí’s organic structures, which were then reflected in the dresses that draped and folded into volumes that defied gravity.

And then there were flashes that delighted: a pair of equestrian boots that finished in a bunch of tassels.

The fashion show, however, was not celebrated by all. A group of a few hundred residents protested the event for what they said were the inconveniences it had caused, including reduced parking in the area. The protest also included animal right activists.

The group of protesters located a few streets down the hill from the park’s outer wall could be heard beating drums, blowing air horns and setting off firecrackers before the show kicked off. Catalan police said they arrested one person for resisting violently to their decision to remove the protesters from a street to let traffic through.

Park Güell, pronounced “gu-ay” was started in 1900 as a planned upscale residential development designed by Gaudí, whose other works include the still-in-progress La Sagrada Familia Basilica. But a lack of buyers led to it being ditched in favor of a park that eventually passed into the hands of the Barcelona townhall.

It now receives 4.4 million visitors a year, mostly from the US, Britain, France, Germany and Italy, with Barcelona residents only representing 0.3% of the visitors, according to the park.



Milan Fashion Week: Prada Projects Youthful Optimism, Not Escapism, in a Turbulent World

Models present creations by Prada during the Milan Fashion Week Men's Spring Summer 2025, in Milan, Italy, 16 June 2024. (EPA)
Models present creations by Prada during the Milan Fashion Week Men's Spring Summer 2025, in Milan, Italy, 16 June 2024. (EPA)
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Milan Fashion Week: Prada Projects Youthful Optimism, Not Escapism, in a Turbulent World

Models present creations by Prada during the Milan Fashion Week Men's Spring Summer 2025, in Milan, Italy, 16 June 2024. (EPA)
Models present creations by Prada during the Milan Fashion Week Men's Spring Summer 2025, in Milan, Italy, 16 June 2024. (EPA)

Without making overt statements, Milan designers expressed their concern over the global turbulence through their collections.

Miuccia Prada said she wanted to project optimism. “Because even if the times are bad, I feel that it was the right thing to do,’’ she said backstage at the Prada show. She is not promoting escapism. “Eventually, I propose something positive, but escapism, I don’t like.”

Not using the platform to comment would be “irresponsible,’’ said the designers behind the Simon Cracker brand, born 14 years ago to contrast the prevailing fashion system with upcycled collections.

They dedicated their collection, titled “A Matter of Principle,” to “the children victims of matters of principle.”

Some highlights from the third day Sunday of mostly menswear previews for Spring-Summer 2025:

Prada projects optimism The Prada menswear collection plays with the idea of imperfection. But nothing is as it seems.

Tops, jackets and hoodies seem shrunken, more than cropped. Overcoats have three-quarter sleeves. It’s a wardrobe somehow inherited, already lived-in. Creases are part of the construction, as technical as a pleat. Pointed shirt collars are held aloft by wires. Trousers feature faux belts, low and below the waistline. Belts also are featured as decoration on bags, as if to close them.

Miuccia Prada, co-creative director of the brand along with Raf Simons, said playing with the idea of the real vs. the fake “is very contemporary,” calling such details “an invitation to take a closer look at the clothes, up close.”

The neutral color palette is punctuated by warm feminine shades: a bright green cardigan, a floral blouse, a turquoise coat, which the designers said suggest a mother’s or grandmother’s wardrobe.

“We wanted (the collection) to be already alive, as if clothes you already lived with,” Simons said backstage.

Prada models emerged from a simple white hut, descending into the showroom down a runway flanked by a white picket fence. The designers describe the setting both as essential and utopian — and youthful.

“Here youth is the hope, it’s the future,” Prada said. “In this moment, we thought it was relevant also to encourage youth to think about our world.”

A world in knots at Simon Cracker So many knots to undo in the world, so many knots holding together the latest Simon Cracker collection of mostly upcycled apparel.

For Spring-Summer 2025, designers Filippo Biraghi and Simone Botte assembled their collection of repurposed apparel castoffs using laces and drawstrings to create skirts from tennis shirt panels, dresses from knitwear and restructure jackets. Each piece is unique.

The “nervous” color palette of black, violet, sea blue and acid green was achieved through dying, each material reacting differently to the process.

“It is a way of recounting what is happening in the world, without being too explicit,” Biraghi said backstage. “It would be irresponsible to not be political in this moment.”

The 14-year-brand’s name is meant to denote that something is broken — cracked — in the fashion system. They embrace imperfection as part of the beauty of their creations, made from forgotten or discarded garments and deadstock fabrics, this time including textiles from Italian sportswear brand Australian.

Australian, which is gaining traction with the club crowd, also created a capsule collection of black neon and technical garments for Simon Cracker, its first production line. Doc Martens provided the footwear, which the designers personalized with pins, badges and costume jewelry.