The Louis Vuitton Cruise 2025 Campaign is a modernist vision inspired by artistic director Nicolas Ghesquière’s choice of Barcelona, as the site for the actual runway show on May 23.

Specifically, the site was the Hypostyle Room of Antoni Gaudi’s Park Güell, a roofed hall whose mosaic ceilings are a Gaudi signature. There was little actual Gaudi inspo in the clothes on the Barcelona runway and featured now in the new Louis Vuitton campaign shot by Jamie Hawkesworth [IG], with creative direction by Charles Levai and Kevin Tekinel.

Campaign models Cara Schadel, Larissa Moraes, Libby Bennett, Mona Tougaard and Thea Almqvist pose against yet another face of the Mediterranean, writing in photos a love letter to a beloved Barcelona.

The campaign images are possibly more relevant than the show in driving home the design synergies between Barcelona’s famous architecture and volumes and proportions in the clothes, styled by Florent Buonomano and Marie-Amélie Sauvé. / Hair by Duffy; makeup by Hiromi Ueda

Creative Influence on Ghesquière’s Barcelona 2025 Cruise Collection

In a pre-show interview Ghesquière mentioned the great painters Velazquez, Goya, and Zurburan, the legendary filmmaker Luis Bunuel and the award-winning 2022 film by Rodrigo Sorogoyen ‘As Bestas’ as sources of his inspiration for the Louis Vuitton Cruise 2025 Collection.

The most obvious inspiration for the new collection — not mentioned — was the [then] upcoming America’s Cup competition happening in Barcelona, post-Paris 2024 Summer Olympics and with Louis Vuitton as the lead sponsor again at the America’s Cup sailing races. The two-month long event culminated in a ferocious final race between between Challenger of Record, INEOS Britannia and the upstart Emirates Team New Zealand, who won the race.

Competitive Sport Is Now Deeply Embedded in Louis Vuitton DNA

Louis Vuitton has fully embraced the mantra of sport and its impact on creating champions. Pietro Beccari, Chairman and CEO of Louis Vuitton is positioning LV as the luxury brand of champions — with the highest honors awarded to inspirational athletes like Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal who starred in the recent Louis Vuitton Core Values campaign, lensed by Annie Leibovitz.

More than a portrait of two men against an alpine vista, this latest campaign is an homage to the values of the Maison, embodied by champions who carry their story with style, elegance and humility. With every step up those rugged peaks, both athletes illustrate how each personal journey can reach legendary heights when it is pursued with determination and pioneering spirit.

It’s fair and reasonable to wonder if this core brand value of competitive sports impacts the designs of the Louis Vuitton fashion collections — even if we’re speaking of rich fabric innovation, for example. AOC is not suggesting that sporting influences begin to define the women’s and men’s clothing designs. No.

But reading about the astonishing level of technology onboard and also in terms of the construction materials and design decisions on the physical structures of the sail boats, this question should be part of the design process at every level of Vuitton culture.