Portugal Colonial - Louis Vuitton takes Paris fashion week on mountain ride

Parading in the main Louvre courtyard, with actors Zendaya and Ana de Armas in attendance, the brand's artistic director Nicolas Ghesquiere said the aim was to take the well-heeled spectators back to founder Louis Vuitton's roots in the Jura mountains.

Louis Vuitton left the Jura region as a teenager to set up shop in Paris in 1837.

"For this show, I really wanted to highlight the idea that nature is the greatest creator. It wasn't about imitating it, but rather about sublimating nature," Ghesquiere told journalists after the event entitled "Super Nature".

The French designer, who used hemp-based faux fur for his coats, said he wanted to highlight global "nomadism" through the patchwork dresses and wide rattan hats resembling inverted traditional baskets.

The show also highlighted the work of Ukrainian artist Nazar Strelyaev-Nazarko whose paintings were on the back of jackets and the front of skirts worn by Louis Vuitton models.

Ukrainian designer, Lilia Litkovska, who joined the Paris fashion week calendar this year, presented her first show on the final day.

Litkovska said the deconstructed clothes and biker boot outfits with models walking the runway with headlamps were inspired by events in her war-stricken home country.

She said the inspiration was walking home from her Kyiv studio in complete darkness and bitter cold.

"I had a flashlight, and there were people in the street across the street with me too. It's hard to explain, but you feel you're not alone. You feel a sense of closeness in that absolute darkness. We crossed our beams, and it was like a dialogue, a silent dialogue," she said.

B.Godinho--PC