Louis Vuitton Shows on Hong Kong’s Harbourfront With Pharrell

Louis Vuitton presented its Men’s Pre-Fall 2024 collection on 30 November 2023 on the Avenue of Stars, the waterfront promenade of Tsim Sha Tsui in Hong Kong, with Victoria Harbour and the skyline of the island as the backdrop. It was the first time the house had staged a show for a men’s pre-fall collection anywhere, and the second collection by Pharrell Williams, its men’s creative director, after his debut on the Pont Neuf in Paris five months earlier.

The promenade, which commemorates the stars of Hong Kong cinema, was covered in sand for the evening. The collection took the sea as its theme, with sailor collars and caps, pearl-trimmed tailoring, and floral prints and surfboards that looked towards Hawaii. The models walked along the edge of the harbour as junks with printed sails passed behind them, and the show ended with a drone display over the water.

It was organised with K11 Musea, the cultural and retail complex at Victoria Dockside founded by Adrian Cheng, and with the support of the Hong Kong Tourism Board and the government’s culture and tourism bureau. The show was broadcast live on screens across the city and on the brand’s channels. For the authorities, it was an opportunity to present Hong Kong again to an international audience after the long closure of its borders during the pandemic.

Williams said he had chosen the city for his first show outside Paris and described the collection as a tribute to the people of Asia and the Pacific. For Louis Vuitton, Hong Kong has been a major market for decades, and the choice of the Kowloon waterfront placed the show a few steps from its largest stores in the city.

The setting is the same stretch of harbour that has been transformed since 2019 by the opening of Rosewood Hong Kong, K11 Artus and, further west, the museums of the West Kowloon Cultural District, including M+. The house returned to China for a larger statement in 2025, when it opened The Louis in Shanghai.