Louis Vuitton Builds On Its Legacy of Collaboration with New ArtyCapucines
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The modern day “collab”—a marriage of entities that by virtue of being in the same sentence separated only by an “X” seeks to fold a new audience into a brand’s current list of disciples—has a laundry list of matches made. Beyoncé and Tiffany & Co.? Iconic. Indya Moore and Tommy Hilfiger? Sign us up. Ghetto Gastro and Beats? Heaven-sent. Art alliance has found its stride when it exists across likeminded mediums—fashion, music and even cuisine. At the helm of this concept, however, was Louis Vuitton.
At 167 years old, Louis Vuitton’s experience with radicalizing art and ideating brand monuments far surpasses that of startups “disrupting the narrative” of their fill-in-the-blank industries. The luxury fashion and good house’s impressive approach dates back to its origin tale, wherein a 14-year-old Vuitton sought out a more convenient way to have his bags as travel companions; trunks of the 1800s were not at their innovative prime. Replacing rounded lips and odorous pig’s hide exteriors (used to waterproof contents) with the archetypal grey Trianon canvas and a at, stackable top, the prodigal teenager’s functional experiment became a historical staple. From this point forward, Louis Vuitton was in the business of architecture—taking what we have accepted as standard, questioning where in fact we can poke holes and building something new that still pays homage to its inception.
As competitors followed the suitcase’s lead, not-so-subtly mimicking the rectangular trunk blueprint, Vuitton and his sons worked to distinguish themselves further. In 1896, son Georges Vuitton birthed the brand’s celebrated monogram canvas. Up until this point, any initial on luggage could only be attributed to a bag’s owner but, in the spirit of recognition, the Vuitton family marked themselves permanently. The result is a modern- day strategist’s dream when it comes to omnipresent brand identity and this pursuit of difference is what attracted minds from various walks of life to the trunks. With Louis Vuitton, a bag metamorphosed into an outlet personal to its creator—from explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza to writers Ernest Hemingway and Françoise Sagan. Personalized pieces are ingrained into Vuitton’s DNA. Centuries later, the team channels a history of intentionality into collaborations wherein Louis Vuitton is the canvas.
The Louis Vuitton ethos is rooted in individuality—recognized by consumers from every corner of the globe—and has informed a history of collaborations that meet a diverse set of eyes where they are. Because the brand validates the artistic license of an artist, honoring one’s perspective and medium, it subsequently allows that creator’s supporters to feel intimately connected to the perhaps more intimidating L and V monogram.
In 2012, this meant celebrating the work of now 92-year-old sculptor and artist Yayoi Kusama. “Louis Vuitton understands and appreciates the nature of my art,” the nonagenarian shared at the time of the collaboration, “therefore there isn’t much difference from my process [and theirs].” Louis Vuitton’s capability to mirror a partner builds something that simultaneously commemorates the other while remaining authentic to the brand. In love with her affinity for the in nite, the brand tapped Kusama to splatter her quintessential spots, traditionally hosted on phallic forms, instead on bags and silk scarves. Together, the union of the two brands birthed another iteration of recognizability.
While the Louis Vuitton’s mark threads every collaboration in some way, the brand has taken on multiple forms of rebellion like that of their collaboration with Kusama. Shortly before the artist’s Louis Vuitton debut, the brand handed over the reins to graffiti-inspired designer Stephen Sprouse. Known for his coupling of what the New York Times coined “uptown sophistication…with a downtown pop sensibility,” the late artist was chosen with the intention to obscure the expressive lanes of fashion, art and graffiti with a Louis Vuitton bag line. The Spring Summer 2001 collection of seventeen models created a surge in press coverage and replicated prototypes; and when the Keepalls and Speedys physically went live, they barely saw the light of day as a collective, almost consistently sold out. In another example of breaking the status quo, the brand made way for Sprouse to interrogate the sacrosanct of its monogram. In questioning its own tradition, Louis Vuitton simultaneously invited in a new wave of spectators and clients.
Because creating a platform for other artists is as intuitive to Louis Vuitton as the founding trunks themselves, when the brand celebrated its 150th anniversary in the early aughts, it brought Takashi Murakami’s manga-inspired craftsmanship to its collections instead of presenting the expected heritage-based deep dive or revisioning. The Japanese contemporary artist is another independent known for highlighting the friction of high end and accessible imagery (e.g. anime) in his work. A white backdrop made festively ornate by the subtle drip of brightly colored LVs, the Louis Vuitton x Murakami handbags—beloved by the likes of Jessica Simpson and Lindsay Lohan—are tangible memories of desirability for those of us whose early exposure to luxury could be summed up by a glimpse at the fashion books stacked in our parents’ magazine racks. In other words, it’s our first memory of cool. Perhaps one of the most famous collaborations to date, the Multicolore Monogram canvas not only put more budding fashionistos onto Louis Vuitton, but also boosted Murakami’s work with a placement in Los Angeles’s Museum of Contemporary Art.
Louis Vuitton’s rolodex continues to surprise even those incredibly tangential to the fashion world. Perhaps your skater chic neighbor touts their Supreme-embellished handbag, your Arsenal- loving partner has the Vuitton 3D-printed encasement of the 2018 FIFA World Cup engraved in their memory or even your five-year-old nieces and nephews get excited to play with the brand’s dollhouse, Malle Maison Vivienne. While we all may not own a Louis Vuitton piece ourselves, we can certainly appreciate its historical influence and versatility, knowing that with each collection drop we’ll learn something new about the brand’s past or its artistic collaborator. Louis Vuitton doesn’t serve a homogeneous audience—it’s for the rebels, the sneakerheads and the straightlaced alike. And its collaborations don’t serve to simply add followers to an Instagram profile—they seek to evolve Louis Vuitton into a new, more future- forward version of itself every time. After all, Louis Vuitton trunks have never been just large empty boxes—they’re a house for Louis’s imagination