The real impact of the Cruise shows

The rich and famous fly all over the world just to watch Gucci, Louis and Chanel, but flights aren't the biggest problem

On Monday, Gucci took over the Tate Modern in London for its Cruise 2025 show. Models walked around the concrete bowels of the Tate, which had been given a smattering of foliage to make things feel a little less brutalist. Local faces like Kate Moss were there, but also celebs flown in from across the pond like Debbie Harry, Solange and Kaytranada.

A few weeks before that, Chanel showed its Cruise collection on top of an apartment block that Le Corbusier designed in Marseille. Again, guests flew in from all corners of the world, and this time friends of the house jumped on a podcast sesh after the show — Lily-Rose Depp said she’s a fan of the cycling shorts, and Ed Banger’s Pedro Winter brought out Sébastien Tellier to blast out a quick tune on a piano.

Louis Vuitton is showing Cruise in Barcelona on May 23. Last year, the world’s biggest luxury house showed “a hybrid elegance of baroque opulence and neoprene” on Isola Bella. The rich and famous would have had to not only fly into Italy, but also take a quick boat ride, because the 16th-century Palazzo floats in the middle of Lake Maggiore. 

The Cruise shows are the biggest, most exclusive, and most extravagant dates on the fashion calendar. No matter if it’s Louis or Dior or Prada, the format is the same: the world’s biggest luxury houses fly in celebrities and influencers from all over the world to attend a ten-minute fashion show, which is set in the kind of next-level location you’d never see at a regular fashion week. They’re perhaps the most obvious indicator of what the industry is these days — an excessive, unsustainable playground for the rich and famous (and the children of the rich and famous).

The Cruise shows are next-level exclusive — you might get a seat at the regular shows in Paris, but getting an invite to Cruise is something else entirely. I only went to one of them back in my previous life as a Fashion Person — Gucci Cruise 2018, at the Palazzo Pitti in Florence. We got to the venue by walking through the Vasari Corridor, the passageway the Medicis used to get around Florence without getting close to all those filthy commoners. Elton John was at the show!

As with so many things in fashion, the Cruise shows have only gotten bigger and more absurd with time. You see, the main fashion weeks are crowded these days, and brands have to really fight for attention. No matter how massive Chanel might be, they can’t own the whole week in Paris — because Vuitton, Dior, Hermes are also showing, not to mention the smaller-but-still-massive names like Balenciaga, Saint Laurent and Celine.

Because Cruise collections happen off schedule, brands have the opportunity to be the biggest thing happening in a given week. The luxury mega-brands are bigger than fashion now, or at least they’re trying to be. A huge, massive, insane show gives them the chance to have their very own version of the Oscars or the Grammys or the World Cup — a cultural moment that’s blasted into iPhones all over the world. That’s why Cruise shows are held in such insane places. Just look at the footage from Vuitton’s Cruise show last year — models walking around a 16th century baroque palace that sits in the middle of a lake in northern Italy. Mental! 

The Cruise shows draw a lot of criticism because they’re so extravagant — all these celebrities flying in from all over the world just to watch a ten-minute show. It’s a common point people make about the industry in general — all these fashion people flying around just to look at clothes, and the shows only last a few minutes! Very true and valid criticism, but also, it’s important to have a bit of perspective.