Get Inspired: Louis Vuitton’s Visual Creative Director Spills Her Secrets!

If you haven't met Faye McLeod, get ready. Kind of the perverse Willy Wonka of set design, as Creative Director, Visual for Louis Vuitton, her genius is fully realized every time you pass the stores' window displays. We caught up with her last night for an exclusive sneak-peek as she began the grueling process of turning LV's Fifth Avenue flagship windows into a provocative multi-leveled mannequin hotel, set to be revealed tonight for FNO from 6 pm. to 11 p.m. "We wanted something voyeuristic, romantic with an unspoken dark side," she told us. "It's a theater of production where the models appear as if by magic." Magic it seems, is indeed at play in all of Faye's visions—her constructions have incorporated everything from roller coasters to life-size zebras. And then there was that time during the Royal Wedding when, in a late night stroke of inspiration, Faye insisted on buying five hundred waving Queen Elizabeth II toys for the Paris windows, which now, McLeod confides, can be found on, "every desk [in Paris]." This fall, she wanted to portray the mystery behind super-glam strangers in a hotel: "when a woman steps out of an elevator, you never know if she's the wife or the mistress." Oh, mon dieu! We blush. But, while this may hit a high-note with us, she insists her best (and favorite) work is the work unfinished—"The next one's gonna be mind-blowing" is always her philosophy. And from our little preview of what's coming tonight, we definitely believe her.