Louis Vuitton Cruise 2014/15 Collection

A look from Louis Vuitton Cruise 2015 | Photo: Susanna Lau

MONTE CARLO, Monaco — So much for a bit of intra-fashion week respite. For some members of the fashion flock, the past few weeks have been a glamorous blur of large-scale international events, targeting a global audience and staged outside the physical and temporal confines of the jam-packed, official fashion weeks which take place one after another in the main fashion capitals every September and February.

In recent weeks, rival haute couture houses Chanel and Dior presented their cruise collections in Dubai and New York, respectively. Pre-collections, like cruise, hit the shop floor before the main Autumn/Winter and Spring/Summer seasons and account for up to 70 percent of a brand’s ready-to-wear business.

While Dior’s show in Brooklyn was a more intimate affair, the Chanel event was reportedly on a scale previously unseen in the fashion world, staged in an elaborately constructed venue in the middle of the Dubai desert with over 1,000 invited guests. Having pioneered the concept of the traveling fashion show with events in places like Moscow, Venice, Scotland and Dallas, it was Chanel that kicked off a new trend to show pre-collections in a big way.

On Saturday evening, luxury behemoth Louis Vuitton ( @LouisVuitton ) joined the fray, making its first salvo into this new business of globe-trotting fashion events pegged to pre-collections, showing the first cruise collection under artistic director Nicolas Ghesquière in the square just outside the Palais Princier Monaco, the official residence of Prince Albert II of Monaco. (In 1997, his family, the Grimaldis, celebrated 700 years of rule from this same palace).

ShoesandDrama.com | The Palais Princier in Monaco

The Palais Princier in Monaco | Source: Louis Vuitton

Check out some of the looks presented at the first Louis Vuitton Cruise Show in Monaco by Women’s Artistic Director Nicolas Ghesquière ( @TWNGhesquiere ).

Louis Vuitton Cruise 2015 Show Look 1