Louis Vuitton's Palm Springs Cruise

"I want to talk to many types of women, not one icon, and every season I try to express that as strongly as possible," so stated Nicholas Ghesquiere moments after the finale of his second cruise show. He was flanked by his favourite Louis Vuitton women - Catherine Deneuve, Michelle Williams, Charlotte Gainsbourg and Alicia Vikander - the wide, futuristic concrete curves of Bop Hope's Palm Springs home framing the desert behind.

Ghesquière doesn't define the mood in fashion so much as set it. It is him we have to thank for the broad sweep of retro mania that has transformed our wardrobes and filled the high street with Seventies suede miniskirts. But this time it felt as if he had been listening closely to a gentle underlying cultural hum: we live in an era that is all about the experiential, doing, achieving, travelling - then posting the results on Instagram. Where success is measured not by the house you live in or the job you have, but by where you have recently been globe-trotting.

And as a brand so firmly orientated in the art of travel, how brilliantly Louis Vuitton fits with this woman. So his girls came out with leather hiking boots and white high-top slim-line sneakers (immediately rushing straight to the top of our luxury trainer list, just when we thought we had kicked that habit) matched with a much more fluid silhouette - long skirts in silk, with leather back packs and punchy short bomber jackets.

"Something long and with fluidity, this was very important for me to express this season," he explained. "A different attitude, effortless and cool, and with flat shoes and long skirts and a certain lightness of the fabrics."

References came at us from everywhere - there were western cowboy belts but worn like leather harnesses, Navajo Indian detailing on beaded tops, and fierce leather dresses with caped shoulders - desert warriors or a Game of Thronesqueen? It was up to us to decide, everything was muddied and made beautiful, each piece shaped by his fine-tuned aesthetic and delivered with the exquisite craft of Louis Vuitton.

There were also futuristic details in the heavily embellished knitwear, tightly zipped leather jackets and crocodile coats in silver with stiff, hard collars. Actress Alicia Vikander was front row and admitted that Nicolas had told her before the show's start that she would recognise her AI character, Ava, from her latest film Ex Machina among this army of tattooed girls, who managed to flow and march at the same time around Hope's stone courtyard.

It was a collection that urged us to be free, to sally forth on our multiple adventures, unhindered by short hemlines or heels, just our perfect leather luggage in tow.