From Paris to Shanghai and then to Tokyo. Louis Vuitton has announced its Spring Summer 2021 Men’s collection by Virgil Abloh will be presented in a voyage of international events.
Titled Message in a Bottle, the series of events will be unveiled gradually in chapters starting from this month’s film release, through to the end of this 2020 year.
In lieu of the traditional fashion show format that has now forced many luxury brands to adapt due to the ongoing global coronavirus pandemic, Abloh and Louis Vuitton created a short-animated film titled The adventures of Zoooom with friends.
The film follows movers packing up Louis Vuitton shipping containers and loading them onto a barge which then sails down the River Seine leaving Paris. Aboard the containers lies a colorful crew of animated characters called ‘Zoooom with friends’ that are hiding as stowaways.
Throughout the voyage across the world, the collection will transform and evolve in an exchange across cultures and nations, with new destinations possibly added along the way. This is an opportunity for the luxury Maison and Virgil Abloh to embrace the global Louis Vuitton community and meet clients in their own parts of the world, moving away from the traditional rules and fashion calendar.
After crossing the oceans, the shipment’s next instalment from Paris will arrive in Shanghai on August 6th, 2020. This is where the Louis Vuitton SS 20 runway show will come to life. The collection celebrates Abloh’s ongoing theme of boyhood and seeing the world through childlike wonder.
The SS 20 collection is also importantly founded in four methods of upcycling. From new looks made from re- cycled material, looks repeated from the AW 2020 collection, looks freely created by the studio during lockdown using recycled material, and new looks created from existing ideas. A strong set of principles setting the premise for the evolution of the collection.
Later this year, the voyage will continue to Tokyo where a third event will be staged. Stay tuned. In the meantime, you can watch The adventures of Zoooom with friends here.
