Mexico City to Lake Maggiore, Cruise 2024’s jet-setting runway shows

A new season of Cruise shows concludes this month, having seen the world’s biggest brands travel to far-flung locales to show their latest offerings across May and June – a tradition originating from the collections created by Parisian fashion houses for the holidaying classes in the early 20th century. This season, Cruise 2024 locations have spanned Isola Bella on Italy’s Lake Maggiore (Louis Vuitton), Los Angeles’ Paramount Studios (Chanel), Mexico City (Dior) and Seoul (Gucci), among others. As ever, there were dramatic sets, colourful collections and star-packed front rows.

Here, in our ongoing round-up, the best of the globe-trotting Cruise 2024 season.

Best of: Cruise 2024

Max Mara, Stockholm, Sweden

During his tenure so far, Max Mara creative director Ian Griffiths has looked towards what he’s called the ‘Max Mara pantheon of strong women’, which span culture, art, design and music. This past weekend in Stockholm’s city hall – the latest stop in the international Cruise show tour – he presented a collection which looked towards Selma Lagerlöf, a Swedish author perhaps best known for her children’s book The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, though also a prolific writer for adults who was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1909. Griffiths chose her for the way she ‘developed ideas that ran contrary to the starchy values of her day’, comparing her to Henrik Ibsen, Edvard Munch, Friedrich Nietzsche and Søren Kierkegaard. In the clothing itself, her influence was reimagined in contemporary riffs on ‘the no-nonsense, upright, tailored silhouette of the 1900s’, complete with gigot sleeves, floor-length hemlines, and voluminous blouses. Interspersed, references to Sweden’s rich folk culture, in particular the festival of Midsommar and its floral offerings – like the tradition of ‘Septem Flores’, whereby participants search for seven different wildflowers which together bring good luck. 

Louis Vuitton, Isola Bella, Italy

On drizzly Isola Bella – a small private island on Italy’s Lake Maggiore – Nicolas Ghesquière presented his latest Cruise collection for the house, set amid the hallways of the 17th-century Palazzo Borromeo (originally, the show was meant to be held in the island’s famed floating gardens; due to the downpour, it was moved indoors). The mythic nature of the island – transformed by Carlo III of the House of Borromeo as a gift for his wife – inspired a dreamlike collection, which looked towards tales of mermaids and dragons (‘drifting creatures that abandon aquatic dwellings for the discovery of terrestrial wonders,’ as the notes described). Reimagined in Ghesquière’s idiosyncratic, time-travelling style, the collection was one of transformation: scuba jackets and skirts had reptilian flares, feathers sported from enormous headdresses, and paillette-covered skirts shimmered like fish scales. Nods to the overwhelming beauty of the Baroque surroundings came in a slew of evening dresses which closed the show, replete with enormous sleeves and delicate fronds of tulle – as if mermaids emerging from the deep.

Dior, Mexico City, Mexico

In 1947, Christian Dior created a dress titled ’Mexico’, the beginning of a little-documented but longstanding relationship between his eponymous house and the country – in 1950, he would beginning selling his clothing at Mexico City’s El Palacio de Hierro (Mexican actress María Félix was an early adopter and ambassador), and later, his successor Marc Bohan would show collections at Camino Real hotel. On Saturday evening (20 May, 2023), current creative director Maria Grazia Chiuri forged her own links with the county, holding her latest Cruise collection in Mexico City’s Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso. The former school was chosen for its historic association with Frida Kahlo, who studied there as a youth and met long-term partner, artist and mentor Diego Rivera in its hallways (together, they would come to define contemporary Mexican art). Kahlo’s influence was evident across the collection through its vivid motifs of flora and fauna, while other garments were drawn from those the artist wore in her lifetime – like a striking pink gown that appears in one of her several self-portraits. A men’s three-piece suit, meanwhile, nodded to Kahlo’s desire to transgress gender in her clothing, while other silhouettes riffed on traditional Mexican garments, like the huipil tunic. A multitude of local craftspeople contributed to the intricately imagined collection, from Sna Jolobil weavers to jewellery made using the Plata Villa workshops in Mexico City. ‘A constellation of places that spark emotions – this is what Mexico is to Maria Grazia Chiuri,’ said Dior. ‘A place of the soul.’

Gucci, Seoul, South Korea

Gyeongbokgung Palace, a 14th-century royal residence in Seoul built by Korea’s Joseon dynasty, provided the setting for Gucci’s latest cruise show which took place yesterday evening (17 May 2023). Doubling as a celebration of the Italian house’s longstanding links with South Korea – it first opened a store in Seoul in 1998, and has undertaken numerous projects in the country since, from restaurants to arts and cultural happenings – the collection itself was a vivid amalgam of influences, a reflection the ‘expressions of multicultural style found’ on the buzzing city’s streets. Designed by the in-house creative team (Alessandro Michele’s successor Sabato de Sarno will present his first collection in September), it followed the high-octane rationale of the womenswear collection presented in Milan in February – with its clear nods to Tom Ford’s tenure in the 1990s. Here, though, a sportier feel to proceedings – notably, in the sinuous line of a series of hybrid looks inspired by the wetsuits worn by the windsurfers and jet-skiers of Seoul’s Han River. Several of the looks even came with matching Gucci-emblazoned surfboards, while archival bags were playfully reimagined in colourful scuba. 

Chanel, Los Angeles, United States

A vast recreation of a basketball court at Los Angeles’ Paramount Studios – decorated with the house’s double-C motif and featuring a scoreboard which pitted Los Angeles against Paris – provided the setting for Chanel’s latest Cruise collection. It followed another stateside happening for the house, the opening of ‘Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty’ at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, for which the house was the principal sponsor. Here, Lagerfeld‘s successor Virginie Viard took centre stage with a playful collection that paid ode to colourful Californian tropes, from riffs on 1980s workout-wear (Jane Fonda was cited as one of the touch points) to palm tree-adorned knits and Barbie-pink separates (several of the looks recalled the archetypal American doll, and ‘Barbie’ star Margot Robbie watched on from the front row). The ease of American sportswear ran throughout – whether in shimmering sweatpant-style trousers, 1980s-tinged short-sleeved tailoring, cut-off denim, or lamé swimsuits (leg-warmers completed the look). ‘A tribute to the glamour of great film stars… evoking the world of fun to be had with aerobics, sports and roller skating,’ said Viard of the collection, which culminated with a performance from West Coast native Snoop Dogg. ‘The idea is to offer a breath of fresh air, a voyage, a light-hearted and happy fantasy.’