It was 2022’s second, serious fashion moment. After Jeff Goldblum’s closing of the Prada show, Louis Vuitton staged Virgil Abloh’s eighth and last men’s collection for the house as a modern dance theater meets classical concert spectacle. The collection was called Louis Dreamhouse and the Carreau du Temple in the Marais was turned into a giant set with an empty bed, a staircase from which the opening dancers bounced up and down from some hidden trampolines, the roof of the house with a smoking chimney which the nearly one hundred models and dancers used as navigation and walked or danced around and a dining table where the Chineke! Orchestra sat and performed a Tyler, the Creator composed soundtrack conducted by the music director of the Opéra national de Paris the Venezuelan Gustavo Dudamel. Such is the power of LV. Abloh who passed last fall had started this collection and his savvy team and ateliers finished it with Vuitton aplomb. Let’s remember, Abloh was the first black designer in charge at a big fashion house, in fact the biggest. He and Kanye West, the famous fashion interns at Fendi under now Vuitton CEO Michael Burke, have the fashion world in firm control in 2022 and that’s a good thing. West and his Gap collaboration sales are on fire and Vuitton’s will be the same with the final designs of Abloh. There are even LV Air Jordan sneakers, which will be auctioned off at Sotheby’s. Abloh’s major contribution to fashion was to make the exclusive completely inclusive and although the price tag of his Vuitton pieces are hefty, fashion fans from all over the world have been storming the shops and boutiques to be part of the dream he was selling. No matter at which cost.

Black and white tailoring?

The show opened with black clothes and closed in innocent white. With this show, Abloh also entered the gender clothing debate with some stunning tailoring. He closed with a male bride in a white skirt and veil.

The architect?

While often accused of copying ideas from other designers, one of Abloh’s design signatures at Vuitton harks back to his days as an architecture student. He often constructed giant kites and house structures on models’ backs, seemingly improbable shapes that now resonate so much more. Yesterday a model wore giant angel wings in the white section.

Cross pollination?

Maybe that’s what Abloh permanently introduced in fashion more than disruption. His mixing of categories to erase boundaries was evident in the clothes and staging – a rapper composing a classical music soundtrack, dancers sharing the runway with models, major jewelry accesorization of models ears, street wear as in LV emblazoned baseball jackets and exquisite shiny surface tailoring, a dance theater worthy choreography of models. Abloh was interested in DJ’ing, furniture design, made cars with Mercedes, had museum exhibitions in Chicago, was working on a philosophy book with a Swedish intellectual, had more friends in the press than anyone, texted them, did philanthropic work, showcased talents like stylist Ibrahim Kamara and made all of Paris his stage for his shows. RIP.