AVIGNON, France — All the world’s a stage, William Shakespeare once wrote. Now Nicolas Ghesquière has proposed a bevy of exuberant clothes for it.

His latest cruise collection for Louis Vuitton is a hit — lavishly embellished, spunky in spirit and theatrical to the right degree. While flamboyant, it deftly skirted the “costume-y” admonishment that sometimes befalls designers.

Vuitton and Ghesquière brought the fashion pack to Avignon and its world-famous Palais des Papes, whose imposing Gothic architecture heightened the “Excalibur” vibes of the collection, which spanned from busy medieval tunics and jaunty capes to soft Joan of Arc dresses in metallic jersey.

“Women’s armor for everyday life,” Ghesquière said, flashing a smile.

The accessories were dazzling, the open-toed, sock-like booties bedazzled to the hilt with mirrors galore and all manner of precious materials, and the leather cavalier boots hammered with zillions of silvery grommets. Alma bags came bearing the gilded 3D embellishments usually found on rare book covers. In English, the technique is dubbed “manuscript illumination.”

“It looks at history, but it’s not historical,” Ghesquière said of the collection during a preview on Thursday, rattling off a host of references that spanned all the way from Arthurian times to a swath of glam-rock royalty, from David Bowie to the Haim sisters, two of whom attended Thursday night’s golden-hour show.

A UNESCO World Heritage site, the Palais des Papes has been a key venue for the city’s annual theater festival since 1947, when French director and actor Jean Vilar began staging performances in the vast courtyard of the historic monument.

Now Vuitton becomes the first fashion house to stage a runway show at the landmark, which hosted the papacy for 70 years until 1377, when it returned to Rome.

Es Devlin created a striking set of tiered, red velvet theater seats left empty, placing the audience where the stage would usually be placed for the summer festival program.

Cate Blanchett, Emma Stone, Saoirse Ronan, Catherine Deneuve, Alicia Vikander and Stacy Martin — many in the south of France for the Cannes Film Festival — were among celebrities in the front row who watched Julia Nobis stroll out in a visually scrambled knight’s uniform, cuing up an array of blurred references to medieval times, and the performing arts.

“I was very interested in clothes for the stage that are so influential in fashion in general, through musicians, through actors, through dancers. It’s something very collective and very inspiring,” Ghesquière enthused.

With its surfeit of rich, often metallic fabrics and dense embroideries, the collection skewed dressy, though interspersed were some streamlined pea coats, a few leggy skirt suits favored by the likes of French First Lady Brigitte Macron, and lots of demonstrative knitwear and jersey, some unrecognizable as such.

Ghesquière went to town on unusual materials and textures, from pert caps in raffia to wood-framed handbags in collaboration with Thomas Roger, a crafty 30-year-old wunderkind in Alsace, France, whom the designer discovered via Dutch model Marte Mei van Haaster.

The fabrics reflected colors and motifs found in artworks and decorations in the papal bedroom, while the silhouettes — short, flaring skater skirts and knitted HotPants abounded — rooted the collection in the present day.

Ghesquière said he first visited Avignon in the early Aughts, encountering Bill Viola videos, Pina Bausch performances and Christan Boltanski installations, cementing for him the city’s stature as a “cradle of culture.”

He sees destination cruise shows as participating in the celebration of culture — key for Vuitton as it extends its tentacles ever further into art, entertainment and hospitality.

To wit: The luxury giant scoped out 36 hotels dotted around Provence to host guests at the show, who were treated to olive-oil tastings, hikes, antique market visits and open-air dinners and lunches in spectacular locations.

It’s a big year for Avignon, celebrating the 25th anniversary of it being the European Capital of Culture, the 30th anniversary of the UNESCO World Heritage recognition, and the 50th anniversary of the Petit Palais-Louvre Museum.

French artist Jean-Michel Othoniel, among guests at Vuitton’s show, is mounting a massive solo show this summer spanning public spaces and 10 museums, including the Palais des Papes.

“It’s always amazing for an artist to see this craziness of fashion — and the links to the architecture and the spirit of the place,” Othoniel said after the show. “But I really loved the shoes. The shoes were amazing.”

But of course, performing for the stage was the other big story of the collection, and the night.

“The first time I came to Avignon was for the [theater] festival,” Blanchett, a regular on the stage, said as she arrived at the VIP cocktail in a dramatic batwing blouse.

“I might be on stage pretty soon,” Chloë Grace Moretz teased, adding that her beauty line Godmode is launching “very soon.”

Ronan confessed to a bit of reticence when the play’s the thing.

“Theater is wonderful, but there is a bit of you that’s like, ‘Gosh, this is hard,’” she said, shrugging a leather bomber jacket over her vaporous, lingerie-style gown. “My husband [Jack Lowden] is on stage right now and I think he’s more born to be on stage than I am.”

However, “I like when theater and fashion come together,” she added.