Parachutes in Paris: Juun J and Louis Vuitton

JUUN J, LOOK 3; LOUIS VUITTON, LOOK 3

 

Juun J.
Juun J. is a designer who likes to take an idea–like the multiple zippers in his fall collection–and explore all the possibilities. This season, Korea’s biggest menswear export was all softness and light. White gauze shirts billowed almost to the ankle over narrow pants. Even the perfecto jackets were white, in soft cottons worn with sarouel jeans with an offside zip fly, and parachute-style parkas. Fine cotton sheeting, striped baby blue and white, looked almost old school. It was permanently wrinkled tailoring shaped up with just a few of Juun’s favorite zips.


Louis Vuitton

Paul Helbers’ “head trip” for Louis Vuitton mixed jungle trek tech styling with parachute constructions. His refined luxury came from the gambling skyscrapers of Shanghai for what he called “digital bohemians,”who prefer to travel by computer mixing and matching along the way. In the middle of all this, he also managed to indulge this season’s tattoo mania. The collection’s Chinese zodiac symbols, in all-over prints and lazer cut leather bags, are designed by New York’s tattoo artist-to-the-stars Scott Campbell, who was on hand back stage to temporarily tattoo the LV crew in all the right places. The collaboration began when Helbers walked into Campbell’s parlor on a recent trip to New York and became fascinated with his precise Victorian graphic style. It was only later that he learned that Campbell is also responsible for all 41 of Marc Jacobs’s tattoos, too.