The reference to “The Truman Show” in Louis Vuitton's show

Louis Vuitton's FW20 show has just ended. In the setting of the show there was an unexpected reference to the cult film "The Truman Show" starring Jim Carrey. To enter the catwalk, the models descended from a diagonal staircase of the same tint of the wall, which closely resembled the staircase from which Jim Carrey came out of the scene in the famous ending of the film going from a perfect but fake life to the real world. In his notes on the show, Abloh said:

“Tailoring and the tapered silhouette — the firm symbols of convention, trade, and success — depart their corporate comfort zone. Twisted and turned, the dress codes of an old-world are neutralized, re-appropriated, and embraced for a progressive joie de vivre. Don’t let your day job define you”.

The theme of the collection was "Heaven on Heart" and if the setting of the show symbolized paradise, perhaps Abloh wanted to accentuate the nature of artifice, just as in the film the perfect life of the protagonist was just a film set. The giant tailor's instruments that dominated the room, a spool and a pair of scissors, used as seats by the public refer instead to the technique of estrangement, that is, to place everyday objects out of context to make you reflect on their nature. The same could be said of the invitation to the show: a clock without numbers that went backwards. In the show notes it's written that:

"Virgil Abloh applies the mechanics of the surreal to rewind the clock of our collective understanding inflicted by age. Looking at the world through the gaze of a child, a teenager or a young person, is equivalent to the first impression, the purity of mind and the refreshing optimism of naivety."

This "mechanics of the surreal" includes precisely the process of estrangement, which was originally born to eliminate the automation of perception. Similarly, Abloh challenges the automatic ways in which we perceive menswear, taking advantage of the opportunity to eliminate even that distinction between tailoring and streetwear, which is interpreted as garments worn in reality, regardless of its regardless of the social codes to which it is associated. By freeing the definition of streetwear from previous standards, Abloh wants to authorize dreaming. It's not our day-job that defines us, but our aspirations.

A certain type of estrangement has also been used in the looks of the collection, in which the classic garments of the men's wardrobe have been deconstructed or subtly modified by unexpected layering, color gradients, crystal encrustation and unusual tailoring constructions. An important visual theme was the cloud-dotted blue sky, a backdrop loved by much surrealist painting and especially by Renè Magritte, which was also the theme of an entire section of looks, decorated with an all-over print similar to that of the show's setting.

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