LOUIS VUITTON (SS26) MAKES STAYING IN LOOK LIKE A ROYAL PRIVILEGE

When home is a palace

There is staying home, and then there is staying home like Anne of Austria. Louis Vuitton’s spring/summer 2026 show unfolded in the very summer apartment once claimed by the Queen of France, mother of Louis XIV, tucked inside the Louvre and currently closed to the public for renovations.

Decadent hardly begins to describe it. And what better setting to explore the newly fashionable ROMO relief of missing out than in a gilded room where anyone would gladly cancel plans forever?

The wardrobe of the indoor aristocrat

Of course, Nicolas Ghesquière’s interpretation of staying in is no sweatpants-and-slippers affair. Instead, the creative director dreamt up a wardrobe for a woman who gets dressed to not leave the house, the kind of woman whose private life looks better than most people’s public appearances.

Long johns, for example, became clingy, off-the-shoulder silhouettes, their stripes reworked into elegance rather than endurance. A paneled skirt hinted at a futuristic duvet because even lounging deserves a little sci-fi glamour. And a sharp-shouldered coat, featherlight and belted, doubled as the most couture bathrobe Paris has ever seen.

Sleep dresses too good for sleep

Then came the slips and sleep dresses, a parade of boudoir fantasies too perfect to be hidden in bedrooms. Some fell in dusty, soft hues, cascading to the floor with liquid grace, boned for structure yet floating like whispers. Others were cut in stiff silks, adorned with folkloric embroidery and even fur trims, as if Marie Antoinette had ordered them straight from the Louis Vuitton atelier.

The point, of course, was never to wear them to bed. These were garments meant to haunt the corridors of private palaces. And all of it grounded in comfort: ornate slippers, velvet house boots, footwear so chic it made one long for parquet floors to glide across.

Scenography for a dream apartment

To bring this fantasy alive, scenographer Marie-Anne Derville transformed the royal residence into a contemporary apartment that refused to choose an era. Art Deco chairs by Michel Dufet from the 1930s sat alongside 19th century ceramics by Pierre-Adrien Dalpayrat, while Robert Wilson’s contemporary works winked from the walls

It was a collage of centuries, much like Ghesquière’s collection itself,historic references laced with futuristic tweaks. Then there was the soundtrack: Talking Heads’ domestic hymn “This Must Be the Place,” delivered in the unmistakable voice of Cate Blanchett. Who else could make staying home sound like a form of divinity?

Conclusion: home is the runway

Louis Vuitton’s spring/summer 2026 collection was an ode to intimate decadence, the joy of dressing without an audience. It was less about going out and more about the silent theatre of staying in, where the walls are your witnesses and every corridor is a catwalk. If home truly looks like this, then ROMO is not just a trend, it is a lifestyle. And as Cate Blanchett whispered David Byrne’s words through gilded halls, one thought crystallized: home is not only where the heart is: it’s where Louis Vuitton wants the show to go on.

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