Louis Vuitton Takes Men’s Fashion Show to China’s Aranya – WWD

SHANGHAI — Louis Vuitton is planning a “spin-off” show for its men’s spring 2023 collection on Sept. 16.

The event will take place at Aranya Gold Coast, a resort town in Beidaihe that’s a two-hour train ride from Beijing, neighboring the beachside sanatorium frequented by China‘s party elites.

Created by the Louis Vuitton studio, the collection was initially shown during Paris men’s fashion week last June with a “playground” themed runway show at the Louvre.

Aranya, which means “a silent and peaceful place away from clamor and crowd” in Sanskrit, is a 4.3 million square-meter coastal real estate development that boasts a collection of “cultural spaces,” including a seaside chapel, a “Lonely Library,” UCCA Dune and Aranya Art Center.

The show will take place at 5:30 p.m. China time with livestreams on the brand’s official website and across social media channels such as Wechat and Weibo.

The Aranya spin-off will be the second time the French luxury house has staged a menswear show in China.

In August 2020, Louis Vuitton unveiled an outdoor fashion spectacle at Shanghai’s West Bund. Under the late Virgil Abloh‘s stewardship at the time, the livestreamed spectacle generated more than 100 million views worldwide.

Michael Burke, chairman and chief executive officer of Louis Vuitton, said the event also contributed to strong sales and preorder results in the region. Burke told WWD that customers spend “10 times more” after a spin-off show is staged.

Last September, a spin-off of the original women’s spring 2022 fashion presentation of Nicolas Ghesquière’s was reprised in Shanghai with 21 new looks and three bags. The Shipyard Repair Docks by the Huangpu River were transformed into a ballroom strung with more than 1,000 chandeliers.

Ghesquière’s first spin-off show in China garnered 158 million views online.

Despite Beijing’s strict zero-COVID-19 policy limiting travel and a slowing economy, China continues to be one of the world’s most important luxury markets. Louis Vuitton is pushing ahead with reimagining the traveling fashion show to boost sales.

In collaboration with the Aranya Gold Coast community, Louis Vuitton will entrust its local team to introduce localized elements at the Aranya spin-off, such as “a series of cultural happenings from contemporary dance and film screenings” and “a party at sundown.”

Excited Aranya residents offered a preview of the spin-off on Xiaohongshu, the popular Chinese social commerce platform. A larger-than-life sculpture of a young man staring longingly into the sky and various skyscraper-shaped sculptures, both signature design elements of Abloh’s Vuitton, are being erected by the coast-side chapel.

“Each show has an intimate relationship with its predecessor and announces its successor. A spin-off reinforces and builds on the previous show,” Burke told WWD previously, drawing distinction between restaging a show and creating a renewed sense of luxurious experience.

Vuitton will be the second luxury brand to host a large-scale fashion show event in China this year. In August, Prada restaged a mashup of its men’s and women’s fall 2022 collections in Beijing’s Prince Jun’s Mansion, a courtyard hotel in the traditional Chinese style.

On the women’s side, Vuitton recently hosted five small-scale runway shows for its VIP clientele, according to Xiaohongshu, a popular social commerce platform.

Top clients in Beijing, Hangzhou, Chengdu, Guangzhou and Dalian were able to enjoy a revised version of women’s fall 2022 runway collection, sip Champagne and place orders.