Jet engines strut across the world’s runways every day, but on October 7, GE engines made their formal debut on an entirely different kind of runway when Louis Vuitton featured the engines during the designer’s Paris fashion show.
Louis Vuitton’s creative director, the French designer Nicolas Ghesquière, used fabrics bearing images of jet engines made by GE and its joint-venture partners for his women’s ready-to-wear collection titled “Strange Days.” Engines like the best-selling GEnx, which is powering many planes in the Dreamliner fleet, the CF34, and the GP7200 – built by the Engine Alliance for the A380 double decker – landed on pants, jumpsuits and leather jackets. Ghesquière also wove the shapes of their sinuous composite fan blades and metal exhaust nozzles into handbags and accessories.