Vuitton takes a beating

Some of the biggest guns in fashion – Christian Louboutin, Cindy Sherman, Frank Gehry, Karl Lagerfeld, Marc Newson and Rei Kawakubo – have come up with designs for Louis Vuitton celebrating the centenary of the famous monogram that George Vuitton created in honour of his father Louis, the firm’s founder.
The designers were chosen for the “Icon and the Iconoclasts” collection because they share a reputation for overturning the apple cart.
“I was born and raised in Paris, so I thought about something that would be unmistakably Parisian,” says shoe specialist Louboutin. “This is how the idea of the caddy came about – it’s totally attached to shopping in the markets of Paris. I once tried to count the numbers of caddies I saw in two hours at a Parisian market – there were 109!”
“I just really wanted the trunk myself!” contemporary artist Sherman says of Vuitton’s largest case. “Then I thought about my parrot, who is iridescent green and has all these other colours when he spreads his wings. That became the colour scheme for the interior. I thought it would be really nice if the outside of the trunk looked old, like it had travelled around the world with all of these stickers.”
Architect Gehry wanted to maintain people’s focus on the outside of the bags. “The interior is more private, and a darker blue just felt more orderly somehow, that it would give the things in the bag more clarity. I suppose I just have a fantasy of what it would be like to be inside the bag!
“I imagine there’s a lot of ‘establishment’ architects who’d be snooty about me designing a handbag – that’s the best part!”
Clothing designer Lagerfeld quotes Voltaire: “Anything that needs an explanation isn’t worth the explanation.”
“So what can I explain?” he says. “By now you’ve seen what I did? It’s fun! All of the boxing things are related. I know more and more women who’ve started to box.”
Jack-of-all-trades designer Newson quickly settled on designing a backpack structured so it can stand up. “If I ever want to prop the bag up and have a snooze, I can.
“And I wanted to explore the monogram function. If you go back to the reason the monogram canvas was invented, it’s because it’s durable and weatherproof. I used it around the base so it almost became like a tyre on a car or the sole on a shoe.
Fashion creator Kawakubo routinely breaks down materials to find a fresh approach, and “this time I tried to play it straight”, she says. “I simply made some holes in the fabric of the bag.” An admirer of Vuitton for its tradition and skill, she nevertheless set out to create a new look. “I was looking for something that hadn’t been done before, something within the limits of possibility.”