4 min read
Gallery founder Hannah Traore was shocked she’d even be able to attend the Louis Vuitton Cruise show at the Frick. She arrived back in the city late Saturday night—less than 24 hours before her fitting with the design house—after a weeklong grand tour with stops in Venice for the art Biennale, London to visit family, and Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York to attend a board meeting for her alma mater. “The timing was great,” Traore tells ELLE Decor just the day after attending the show along with a star-studded guest list that included Zendaya and Anne Hathaway.
Upon arrival, Traore hit the ground running: fitting on Sunday, welcome dinner at Chez Fifi Tuesday night, show and afterparty Wednesday night (for which she did her own hair and makeup), and, in between, organizing exhibitions for her eponymous gallery. Here, she gives ELLE Decor a peek into a Louis Vuitton-filled 48 hours.
Courtesy of Hannah Traore
Traore in her welcome dinner outfit.
ELLE Decor: What did you think when you first were invited to the show?
Hannah Traore: I was invited three or four weeks ago. It was really exciting because I travel a lot for work, so I was shocked that I would be in town to be honest. I had my fitting Sunday for the welcome dinner and for the show. We knew the date. We did not know the time.
Walk me through your looks. What drew you to each?
They gave me options. The outfit that I wore to the show is the one that I tried on first. Immediately I was like, “Oh my god, I want to wear the black one.” It’s like this amorphous, sculptural, fab two-piece outfit. I love sculpture. I love amorphous. I love when it looks like art. So I thought it was such a good pick. The dinner outfit was a classic two-piece jean monogram fit which I thought was so fun.
I love the pants on the show outfit. They look so comfy.
Very comfy, except for the fact that I was suffocating. It was so hot yesterday.
Courtesy of Hannah Traore
Traore at The Frick.
Any fun table conversations at the welcome dinner?
I was eating everyone’s asparagus. It was white asparagus. Everyone got two pieces and I ate mine so fast.
What was your reaction when you heard the show was going to be at the Frick?
Courtesy of Hannah Traore
Traore sitting at the Louis Vuitton Cruise Show.
I thought it was really smart. Keith Haring isn’t the type of artist who would be showing in the Frick, necessarily, but I thought that the connection between the Louis Vuitton collaboration and the location was smart. There were four different rooms they used. It was gorgeous.
There was such a long way to walk [for the models]. We were in the last room. The runway ended up the stairs, and so I was at the very end watching all of them go up the stairs, which was kind of fun. I really got a focus on the back of their outfits, which was actually quite fab because in this particular collection there’s a lot of really great backs.
Walk me through your show day. What were you doing in the hours leading up to the runway?
I was working. I had meetings in the morning. I worked out, and then I had Zoom calls and in-person meetings. We’re ramping up for this group show that’s starting. It opens June 6, and it’s all artists from Toronto. So honestly a huge part of the day was dealing with customs and customs forms. I was being picked up at 4:10 p.m., and so at 3 o’clock I started doing my makeup and hair—I did it all myself.
As an art lover, what did you enjoy about the collection?
Courtesy of Hannah Traore
One of the looks from the Louis Vuitton Cruise Show.
They did a good job of incorporating the Keith Haring drawings in a less obvious way. For example, they had these bags that felt like drawings. It almost looks like a Lichtenstein, but the gesture is very Keith Haring. It’s one of those things where you wouldn’t necessarily be like “Oh, that looks like Keith Haring.” But then, when you know the theme of the show or the collaboration, you think that makes a lot of sense. I love the pieces that have very obvious Keith Haring references, but I think those more subtle ones are more interesting.
Where was the afterparty and what was that like?
It was at this members club called Maxime’s. You can’t have your phone camera there, so there are almost no photographs online. It was very chic of them to have it there, because everyone wants to know what the inside of Maxime’s looks like. Even more chic, there were light bites in one room, a full sushi bar in another room, and then upstairs there was Latin American food.
What about the Louis Vuitton brand resonates with you, both as a fashion-lover and art-lover?
I think they do a really good job of styling everyone, so I was able to see the breadth of design that the house outputs. I do think that they do a great job of creating more wearable pieces, but also really sculptural outfits which, as an art lover, I love. They also are great at referencing different eras. I think that the group of people they put together is a really beautiful nod to who they are as a brand. There were tons of creative people.