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Okay, when you're going to the organic market," Christian Louboutin is explaining,"you can be superglamorous.You don't have to feel like a loser with your leeks inside your bag."
Louboutin is talking about a caddy—"a classic bag, the most Parisian bag"— that he designed as part of Louis Vuitton's "Celebrating Monogram" project. In honor of the house's 160th anniversary, creative visionaries Karl Lagerfeld, Rei Kawakubo, Cindy Sherman, Frank Gehry, Marc Newson, and, of course, Louboutin reinterpreted the famed Vuitton Monogram with a series of accessories. Each of them,in their own way,enhanced or subverted the logo that has long lived in both the public's consciousness and in its closets.
Cindy Sherman, known for her unsettling self-portraits, went behind the scenes with the trunk she created."I was thinking, sort of selfishly, of what I could use. Initially, my idea was just a makeup case, just a small old-fashioned kind. The team at Vuitton was so taken with the idea that they said, 'Well, what if we did a trunk? In your ideal fantasy world, what would you like?'" So she started to think bigger. "At home in New York, I have shelves for fake eyeballs, fake nails, eyelashes, and things like that. So it became a little traveling studio in a way"—a foldout trunk complete with labeled drawers, a makeup mirror, and a stool, and covered in retro travel stamps from imaginary destinations.
Karl Lagerfeld, who photographed and illustrated this portfolio, was in the mood for a fight—of the luxury kind. His Punching Bag and Trunk (yes, for the Punching Bag) are a handy fashion-industry metaphor if there ever was one. (Not to mention his adored cat Choupette's maid carries her around in a Vuitton duffel.) The enigmatic Comme des Garçons designer Rei Kawakubo's traditional tote is partially burned out, with three holes revealing the bag's lining and merely a "LOUIS VU..."
Frank Gehry explored another landscape: the architecture of style. (He was commissioned to design the Fondation Louis Vuitton, a grand contemporary art museum in Paris's Bois de Boulogne, scheduled to open this month.) Louis Vuitton executive vice president Delphine Arnault also asked Gehry if he would be interested in designing Vuitton's store windows."There's a history that's very emotional for me to talk about," he says. "My father never went to school, was a street kid. He worked in a grocery store, and he won an award at the Canadian National Exhibition for designing a grocery store window. This was the guy who ended up never going anywhere, everything against him all his life—that was the one thing. So when they asked that, I had a little tear in my eye. I never told Vuitton this."
Gehry's bag is literally true to form: "It's a rectangular box, and it's twisted a little bit. I think a curve is feminine, and it just adds a feminine touch," he explains. "We made 10 variations, but they loved that one. We all did." Will Gehry love it enough to carry it to the museum's opening? He laughs. "Okay, if I have to."
Marc Newson was always planning to carry on. When he designed his backpack, he had practicality in mind. "Often my inspiration is simply to create something I personally want to use." But he's also the frst to acknowledge that his classic logoed design topped with jazzy orange feece isn't your garden-variety backpack. "I'd like people to use it like any other backpack, as an excellent travel companion." Pause. "But not for camping, obviously."
For the six iconoclasts, working with Louis Vuitton presented a rainbow of opportunity. "I thought of my pet parrot, who is mostly iridescent green," Sherman says of her trunk's coloring." When he spreads his wings, he's got all the other colors underneath." Of the iconic LV, Louboutin says, "I not only see two letters, but I really see a drawing. Your eyes are captivated.That's the strength of that monogram." As for Gehry: "I've been very fortunate that Bernard Arnault and his family have included me in almost all facets of their world," he says. "But they haven't put me into champagne yet..."
"When I designed the bag, I really wanted to give back to Paris, to Vuitton," says Louboutin. The leeks, sadly, are extra.
