On the bicentennial anniversary of its founder’s birth, Louis Vuitton is orchestrating a global celebration that is unprecedented in scale, creativity, and entertainment.
The man behind the legend
Today, the name Louis Vuitton is synonymous with luxury and savoir faire, but the man behind the name hailed from a background unlike the world of glamour he would later inhabit as one of the French Empire’s premier trunk maker and packers, supported by no less than the Empress herself. His whole life, Vuitton displayed a remarkable foresight for trends and designs that would endure long after his lifetime, including the Damier and beige monogram patterns that remain some of Louis Vuitton’s most popular features even to this day.
200 Louis
And so, in line with its founder’s visionary spirit, Louis Vuitton is bringing together 200 modern visionaries in a creative initiative that pays tribute to Vuitton’s signature product: the iconic Louis Vuitton trunk. Korean boyband and House Ambassadors BTS, architects Frank Gehry and Peter Marino, artist Stephen Sprouse, and activist Gloria Steinem are just some of the notable names who have been given carte blanche to design without limits, taking a 50 x 50 x 100cm box—dimensions close to the original trunk Vuitton developed in the 1850s—and turning it into a work of art that will be displayed in store windows worldwide.
This will be a creative conversation that transcends not just geographical boundaries but temporal ones as well, as a heritage emblem is reimagined with contemporary artisanal techniques and modern technologies like augmented reality.
Louis: The Game
Even as the French maison looks back on its founder’s extraordinary life, the brand is keen to leverage modern cultural capital and the most advanced technologies of our time. Dropping exactly 200 years after Vuitton’s birth on 4 August is Louis: The Game, a video game embedded with NFT artworks that were jointly created by the maison’s artistic directors and digital artist Beeple, who holds the record for the most expensive NFT creation ever sold. Available through the App Store and Google Play for Android systems, the game is centred on Vivienne, the house’s mascot who goes on an adventure to reach a festive birthday destination.
A tribute that comes in all shapes and forms
Over the next few months, fans of the house can also look forward to a large-scale triptych of Louis painted by figurative artist Alex Katz; a fictionalised novel inspired by Vuitton’s life that is available in both French and English; as well as Looking for Louis, an Apple TV documentary that traces the life of the man behind the myth and the legend. From documentary to video game, BTS to NFTs—nothing but the biggest and the best for a man who possessed a dynamism that was larger than life, an eye for fashion that was ahead of his time, and a daring innovativeness that lives on in his eponymous label to this day.
