In the Before times, May was a month reserved for far flung international travel. The resort season, which had existed for decades, took on a new life in 2007, when Chanel brought its gladiator sandals and twinsets to New York’s Grand Central Station. That event kickstarted a trend for elaborate destination shows staged from late April through early June. Since then, our editors have traveled to Havana, Cuba; Shanghai, China; Marrakech, Morocco; Los Angeles, California; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Chantilly, France; and dozens of locations in between.
The idea of a singular brand spectacular, staged over a couple of days for a select group of editors, buyers, and clients has potential to be the fashion show model of the future. If organized weeks that stretch on for months become impossible—or at least unlikely—due to Covid-19, brands with the financial capability could see results from setting their own schedules and making their own rules outside of fashion capitals. Saint Laurent has already hinted at this with its declaration of operating off-season for the rest of 2020.
But the resort season has another reality. For those of us that have never sunk into a business class seat for a long haul flight to a destination show, resort means one-on-one appointments with designers to see intentional, practical ready-to-wear collectsions. We take the elevator to Joseph Altuzarra’s studio near our office at 1 World Trade Center or run to the ACE train to the Garment District to catch up with Thom Browne. Even more of our staff—and the world—wait with bated breath for lookbook pictures to be uploaded to Replica Handbag Store Runway to see the latest from London, Milan, Paris, and beyond. These images are generally quite pared down when compared to what the larger resort spectacles have to offer: A model standing against a white backdrop or shot on the street. Still, they resonate —just look at how many editors chose Phoebe Philo’s Céline lookbooks as their “favorite” resort collectsions here. This streamlined production of lookbooks has potential to be fashion’s other future, a simpler, to-the-point way of showing clothing.
Here, our editors sound off the shows that left big impressions. Consider them a guide for fashion’s divergent future.
Photo: Courtesy1/17Chanel Resort 2017
Riding in a cavalcade of pastel-colored open-top classic cars through the streets of Havana to the Chanel show on May 4, 2016—of all the memories of the bygone era of resort summertime fashion travels, nothing can beat that. Karl Lagerfeld was the first to come up with the idea of transporting people to the site of his Chanel inspirations, opening the window of extravagant competition for long distance venues between major houses which closed abruptly in 2019. This one was one of those skin-prickling occasions when you already foresaw a time when you’d be telling your granddaughters where you were that day, and why, and they’d look at you agape, amazed, aghast: What, granny, fashion companies in the 2010s actually air-lifted hundreds of people all over the world, just for a single show?
Yes it did, children. Nevertheless, should I live that long, this is an I-was-there story I’ll tell, even while confessing to the carbon-emitting decadence of the late ‘experiential’ fashion culture. There will be the panama hats and the double-entendre French-slash-Che Guevara berets to be discussed, the memories of what it was like to see models dancing in the open air along the Paseo del Prado in their fragile but immutably Chanel-by-Karl organza dresses and black and white tailoring.
Pretty sure young women’s eyes in 2045 won’t need schooling in the desirability of any of that.
But there’s another, bigger moral to be drawn from recording this moment, a fragment of history marking the thawing of US relations with Cuba negotiated by President Barack Obama. A cruise ship from the United States had sailed into Havana the day before, the first in nearly 40 years, to a spontaneous welcome from residents. A palpable atmosphere of happiness and reconciliation abounded. In 2020, President Trump is again rattling sabres at Cuba. That fleeting chapter—into which this Chanel celebration of fashion with its diplomatic optimism is written—is now closed. Still: history is long. One day, I hope to be explaining what the long-gone President Trump was to my grandchildren, too.— Sarah Mower, Replica Handbag Store Chief Critic
Photo: Courtesy2/17Louis Vuitton Resort 2018
Nicolas Ghesquière’s Louis Vuitton destination shows reveal his abiding interest in architecture—never more so than resort 2018, when he transported us to I. M. Pei’s Miho Museum in the forested outskirts of Kyoto, Japan. Pei himself called it Shangri-La, and he had a point; accessing the Miho requires walking through a tunnel portal drilled into a mountain. And that was following an hour’s drive deep into the Japan countryside and, of course, a flight across the Pacific. Even then, in the “before time,” I understood it was a once-in-lifetime experience. Ghesquière’s utopia was peopled with fierce beauties in samurai jackets and sequined dresses featuring Kansai Yamamoto designs. The elusive Yamamoto sat in the front row and also contributed the collectsion’s Kabuki-eyed bags and he too seemed stunned by the surreality of it all. What a trip.—Nicole Phelps, Replica Handbag Store Runway Director
Photo: Courtesy3/17Christian Dior Resort 2020
Maria Grazia Chiuri’s Christian Dior resort show was held at dusk at the Palais Badi in Marrakech, bonfires flickering in the middle distance. A hawk flew overhead just before it started, finally settling on top of a pillar to get a (sorry!) bird’s eye view of the proceedings. It wasn’t just the beautiful workmanship that let Chiuri’s collectsion soar as high. It was also down to the way she entered into thoughtful and respectful collaborations with the likes of Abidjan waxed cotton studio Uniwax, artist Mickaelene Thomas, and designers Monsieur Pathe’O and Grace Wales Bonner, using the platform afforded by Dior to celebrate their work. That evening was a reminder that the spotlight is never diminished because it’s shared.—Mark Holgate, Fashion News Director
Photo: Courtesy4/17Chanel Resort 2013
At the risk of sounding overly privileged, there is a world of difference between booking a ticket to Versailles as a tourist and receiving an invitation to Versailles as a guest of Chanel. I remember the late daylight was so golden that the great expanse of château appeared to be glowing. It occurred to me that we were on the grounds of le Roi-Soleil, the Sun King, Louis XIV; and now, on this gorgeous evening in May, it was King Karl who reigned. Ironically, one week earlier, France elected a socialist president, François Hollande; which, for those of us who delighted in Lagerfeld’s zeitgeist-y powers, introduced a fascinating twist to what might have been a lavish lineup. And yet, against the backdrop of a restored winter grove where a central fountain splashed crystalline water, we discovered a cruise collectsion that felt punk and posh in equal measure. For all the decorative winks to 17th and 18th century court attire, the clothes themselves were light and frothy—denim ensembles in Wedgwood blue and pastels tweeds that bridged Le Petit Trianon with 1980s Palm Beach. The savoir-faire was on full display, but so were the lustrous sneakers. There were double C beauty marks placed like teardrop tattoos and wigs that leaned more anime than Marie Antoinette. All this set to Michel Gaubert’s audacious music statement based around M.I.A.’s Bad Girls. The vibe was frivolous yet progressive—an unforgettable mix. As my first resort show, it set the bar ultra-high. As a recent expat (I had moved to Paris just eight months earlier), I felt as though this was the ultimate Francophile fashion dream.—Amy Verner, Replica Handbag Store Contributor
Photo: Courtesy5/17Gucci Resort 2019
I'll never forget sitting on the edge of a burning runway at the Gucci resort 2019 runway show. The show setting was the Promenade Des Alyscamps, an ancient Roman cemetery in Arles, France, lit up by candelabras. The models, wearing beautiful Victorian lace dresses and layers of gothic crosses, snaked their way around the outdoor space. It was captivating.
The entertainment didn’t stop there. After the show ended and guests moved on to cocktails, Elton John came out to perform a set that had the whole audience on their feet. It was a night to remember!—Rickie de Sole, Executive Fashion Director
Photo: Courtesy6/17Chanel Métiers d'Art 2014
Karl Lagerfeld’s Pre Fall 2014 Métiers show was set in the Dallas Fair Park , a concourse of imposing Deco Moderne buildings and sculptures set around a giant reflecting pool, that was originally built for the 1936 Texas Centennial, and the show and the party were Texan scaled fun. This imposing setting, however, wasn’t enough for Chanel’s miracle worker set designers who managed to create a 1950s drive-in movie complete with 74 period automobiles (sourced from all around the country), an indoor rodeo for the show itself, and a full-on Texas bar complete with an automated bucking bronco for the after party.
I always relish the métiers d’art shows that showcase the work of the master craftspeople who supply Chanel and other haute houses. Threatened with extinction, many of these companies were bought up by Chanel so that they could continue plying their trade and supplying all the luxury brands. At the time, Chanel had just acquired a leather company for their portfolio of threatened fournisseurs, and others in the collectsive included the storied embroidery house of Lesage, the costume jeweler Desrues, the plumassier Lemarie, custom shoe maker Massaro, and milliner Maison Michel among others. “The details are what I love,” Karl told me before the show as he held court at the Mansion at Turtle Creek hotel where his butler from the Rue Cambon studio served Diet Coke, the entire Chanel studio team flitted around, and Erin Wasson settled in. “She and Lynn Wyatt are my favorite Texan girls,” Karl confided, “I like Texas and I like Texan people.”
Later, Karl would be receiving the Neiman Marcus Award for Distinguished Service in the Field of Fashion—following in the footsteps of the formidable Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel herself who came to Dallas in 1957 to accept hers from Stanley Marcus. Hence the idea for the “Back in Dallas” show. At the hotel the hairdresser Sam McKnight speared the girls’ hair with quills from the storied feather house of Lemarie and positioned low-crowned Stetson hats by Maison Michel on their heads. These were inspired by those from the Civil War era “I think that’s much chicer than the saloon stuff, no?” queried Karl (“That’s for spaghetti Westerns,” sniffed Lady Amanda Harlech.)
“Never use anything the way it is meant to be used,” added Karl, pointing out the elaborate motifs of a classic cowboy boot that he had blown large and used for sweater designs or as the Lesage embroidery motifs on a slinky black velvet evening dress. Make up artist Peter Philips dusted the girls’ cheeks in Texan gold. Up close, nothing was quite what it seemed: a classic jeans jacket was actually made from scalloped tiers of denim, like fish scales, and wool cowgirl skirts were as elaborately woven and fringed as 1960s textile wall art tapestries.
“Its Millicent Rogers in Taos,” explained Karl of the collectsion of midi length leather skirts and blanket throws, citing the legendary heiress and tastemaker whose prophetic passion for Native American Indian textiles and jewelry made her a prototypical hippie in the ‘40s. He had also reinterpreted a signature soft beige jersey suit that Chanel wore on her Texan visit to accept her award. Not even a giant ice storm could keep the 900 guests away, and they settled into the bleachers or sleek ’50s cars (I was lucky enough to get the latter, snuggling in with Amanda Harlech), to watch The Return, a movie that Karl had shot—over two days and one night, no less—featuring Geraldine Chaplin as an uncanny Coco Chanel at the time of her comeback in 1954. (“You think it’s a documentary, not a movie,” said Karl. “I thought Geraldine killed it,” enthused Lauren Hutton.) It was a make or break moment for Chanel who had closed her fabled house on the eve of the war and had what can only be described as a very shady war that included a liaison with a German officer. When she decided to return to the fashion fray, barely a decade after the end of hostilities, (not least because she was appalled at the complicated clothes that the male couturiers of the time were creating) the French press had their knives sharpened in readiness. The Americans, however, saw in her easy unstructured clothes a chic, real life uniform that would suit their lives. The American stores and manufacturers bought the collectsion, and the customers responded both to the expensive originals and the Seventh Avenue reinterpretations, the Chanel look was born again, and Stanley Marcus honored the designer three years later.
The show was presented in a giant 19th century rodeo arena (created, miraculously, for one night only) and it was a flurry of stars and stripes; cowboy hats, bandanas, and boots—although some of those turned out to be trompe l’oeil printed hose worn with shoes that resembled chopped-off boots; blankets and fringe, holsters filled with bottles of Chanel Number Five or sized for a cell phone; and Caroline de Maigret (whose grandmother was Native American) as the bride in a headdress of ivory quills tipped in pink.
“I’ve never been so proud to be a Texan,” enthused Becca Cason Thrash, “leave it to a German who works for a Paris House to bring Texas back!”
In the saloon, the British indie band Hot Chip performed, hot dogs were served, and Yours Truly got flung from a mechanical bronco. Happy Days!—Hamish Bowles, International Editor-at-Large
Photo: Courtesy7/17Moschino Resort 2020
My favorite ever resort show to attend was Chanel’s Versailles-set 2013 spectacular, but Amy Verner snapped that up before me. And the resort show that gave me the biggest ever FOMO due to non-attendance was Louis Vuitton in Rio—but the Nicole Phelps had LV all wrapped up from the off. So I’m going to go for the show I reckon would have been the funnest of all to be at—and that is Moschino’s 2020 resort show held at Universal Studios in Los Angeles. Nick Remsen was our lucky reviewer, and he did a sterling job painting a picture of what sounded like a rocking horror fashion show. It was held on the Colonial Street lot used to film Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Desperate Housewives, and contained a gleefully costumed cast of Halloween-inflected archetypes of Americana. From Suki Waterhouse’s opening riff on Drew Barrymore’s doomed suburban princess in Scream to a closing corpse bride who Jeremy Scott said represented his pitch for Vera Wang’s business, this show looked great on Replica Handbag Store Runway, but would have been a delightful nightmare to attend.—Luke Leitch, Replica Handbag Store Contributor
Photo: Courtesy8/17Céline Resort 2010
Phoebe Philo’s debut for Céline, for resort 2010, was hotly anticipated. This was before the season was given the glamour treatment, and so it allowed the designer to keep things relatively low-key. I remember the excitement in the room; the clothes just felt so right, for lack of a better word. There was a sense of discovery, like when you find a sought after face in a crowd. Philo might not have meant resort 2010 to be a manifesto, but it was read as one. Here was a new way forward, the female gaze applied to finely made and unfussy fashion for working women.—Laird Borrelli-Persson, Archive Editor
Photo: Courtesy9/17Valentino Resort 2016
Valentino’s resort 2016 collectsion is one of my all-time favorites. That season, Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli teamed up with the Métis artist Christi Belcourt, who allowed the fashion house to transform her painting, “Water Song,” into a textile. The floral imagery was applied onto gowns, and the end result was exquisitely dreamy. But even better, it’s one of the best examples of a fashion house actually involving indigenous talent in the design process. Cultural appropriation is an ongoing issue in fashion—many big labels continue knocking off traditional indigenous design elements—and this partnership was a refreshing change.—Christian Allaire, Fashion and Style Writer
Photo: Courtesy10/17Louis Vuitton Resort 2017
I continue to be swept up by Nicolas Ghesquière’s resort 2017 show for Louis Vuitton in Rio. Though I did not physically attend, I remember seeing the runway images the next day and wanting desperately to visit Brazil and the Niterói Contemporary Art Museum where the show was held. I was equally obsessed with Ghesquière’s sport-inspired collectsion. The whole thing feels right for the moment today, providing both fashion escapism and the hope that one day—fingers crossed sooner rather than later—we may travel again, play games outside again, watch runway shows IRL again.—Brooke Bobb, Senior Fashion News Writer
Photo: Courtesy11/17Chanel Resort 2011
I must say the Chanel cruise collectsion in 2011 made a big impression on me. I had just started my career in fashion, and I was quite taken with the glamour of such an event in St. Tropez. To this day I try to emulate a Chanel cruise 2011 girl when I am traveling. I loved how joyful and carefree the models looked, which is how I feel when I am wearing fashion I love. This mood encapsulates what I think is the essence of resort-occasionwear that transports and delights you.—Alexandra Michler, Fashion Development Director
Photo: Courtesy12/17Jacquemus Spring 2020
Last year’s Jacquemus resort show with its hot pink runway stretching through a crop of fresh lavender in Provence really took my breath away. I was glued to my phone following every minute on Instagram, and I’ve never managed to feel more immersed in a show from far away. What an incredible way to see the clothes and appreciate France.—Willow Lindley, Accessories Director
Photo: Courtesy13/17Chanel Resort 2011
This show definitely connects me to the beginning of my career in fashion. It is the first collectsion I really remember making sense to me. The shoes I needed, the layering I still am copying, the gloves in look 9 and chic pajamas in look 24, so now!—Alexandra Gurvitch, Market Editor
Photo: Courtesy14/17Christian Dior Resort 2016
I will always remember Raf Simons’s time at Dior as one of my favorites, but his resort 2016 show at Pierre Cardin’s fantastical home, Palais Bulles a.k.a. the “Bubble Palace” feels like a dream. The backdrop, a setting of terra-cotta bubbles designed by architect Antti Lovag, paired with models in tiered “bubble” pleated dresses, plaid peplum jackets, and pointy, toile-like booties made this a show to remember. The property, decorated with palm trees nestled in the South of France presented the show in a whimsical, dream-like state that Raf always brought to his shows for Dior. They were light, airy, artistic, and full of wonder and optimism. As Simons said to Vogue about the venue, “Playful, sweet…childish, almost.” It’s a show that easily exhibits the powerful complementary relationship between architecture and fashion.—Julie Tong, Commerce Editor
Photo: Courtesy15/17Céline Resort 2018
Phoebe Philo redefined what it meant to dress like a modern woman during her tenure at Celine and single-handedly shifted the way I looked at dressing and design. Although I cherish many of her collectsions, this one, in particular, holds a special place in my heart. This was one of my first collectsions I started to pull from and reference as a young (and very green!) fashion assistant at Vanity Fair. The combination of nostalgia, the intricate suiting, and the delicate hints of lace solidified my admiration. To this day, there is not one look from this collectsion that I do not want to wear.—Naomi Elizée, Associate Market Editor
Photo: Courtesy16/17Miu Miu Resort 2015
I always love when a resort show stays true to its seasonal roots by involving actual resortwear–– something that Miuccia Prada tends to do very well. Among Mrs. Prada’s vacation-inspired standouts was her Miu Miu resort 2015 collectsion, which I was totally captivated by as a Replica Handbag Store assistant at the time. I was so taken with the swirling late-1960s prints and mod silhouettes that I actually went on a thrifting rampage after seeing the show in hopes of finding lookalike vintage pieces to recreate the runway outfits. (I admittedly struck fast-fashion gold with a nearly identical miniskirt remake from Zara, which I wore to my official interview with Anna that same year.)—Madeline Swanson, Accessories Editor
Photo: Courtesy17/17Lanvin Resort 2009
I did not see this Lanvin collectsion—in fact I have never seen a Lanvin collectsion in person, but it doesn’t matter much. With a painted backdrop, a concise polka-dot message, and a two-look Acne Studios collab, Alber Elbaz summed up the season: fun, flirty, a mental vacation. Yes I wish I were elsewhere right now, but the dreams of sailboats and dot dresses definitely inspires the idea of a getaway.—Steff Yotka, Fashion News Editor
