You might fondly remember the Louis Vuitton x Murakami Speedy bag as one of the handbag highlights of the early aughts. The artist Takashi Murakami’s take on the brand’s monogram canvas city holdall was the It-bag of choice for Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan and Jessica Simpson circa 2003. The latter celeb even took her rare Speedy on a camping trip to Yosemite in her MTV reality show, Newlyweds. Fast forward to 2020, and modern-day fashionistas who are obsessed with that era’s style – including Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid – are the ones carrying Murakami’s splashy Speedy.
The collaboration, which premiered on the spring/summer 2003 runway, was not limited to the compact bowling bags. Creative director Marc Jacobs, who was at the helm of the French house from 1997 to 2013, invited Murakami to makeover Louis Vuitton’s signature monogram collection with his distinctive colour-pop palette. From the elegant Alma to the distinctive Papillon, logoed LV bags were made riotous with injections of hot pink, turquoise, yellow and kelly green.
Monogramouflage and Cherry Blossom collections followed, as Murakami lent his cartoon-like artwork to Louis Vuitton accessories (some even featured manga-inspired characters nestled between LV stamps). With a wave of a monogrammed paint brush, the artist, who is famed for mixing high art with popular culture tropes, revitalised the heritage brand’s classic accessories and catapulted Louis Vuitton to mainstream media attention.
“Our collaboration has produced a lot of works, and has been a huge influence and inspiration to many,” Marc Jacobs said in 2009, when the Bilbao Guggenheim staged an exhibition of Louis Vuitton x Murakami designs. “It has been, and continues to be, a monumental marriage of art and commerce. The ultimate crossover – one for both the fashion and art history books.”
Indeed, the collaboration was so popular that it was only phased out of stores in the summer of 2015, under the stewardship of current creative director Nicolas Ghesquière. During the 12-year Louis Vuitton x Murakami tie-up, the Multicolore monogram line was the most popular and each style has become a status symbol in its own right. The rarity of the pieces continues to drive up the price tags of the bags on second-hand platforms and consignment sites – particularly in 2020, when there is a lot of interest in the major commercial bag successes of the ’90s and ’00s. “We are always on the hunt for these one-of-a-kind items or pieces that will stand the test of time,” Rewind Vintage Affairs founder and CEO, Claudia Ricco, recently told British Vogue of the lucrative resale market for limited-edition lines.
This now-iconic meeting of brand and artist was not a new concept for the house. In the ’20s, the grandson of its founder Gaston-Louis Vuitton, who would later take the reins of the company, was a keen collector of artworks. His invitation to artists to deck out Louis Vuitton store windows sowed the seeds for the vast array of special projects Vuitton has conducted with creatives ever since. Prior to Murakami, Marc Jacobs commissioned Stephen Sprouse to graffiti over Louis Vuitton bags with his signature scrawl. It was a bold move for a brand that had originally held its logo as sacrosanct, but ultimately paid off and paved the way for others to reimagine the LV lettering.
Following Murakami, Louis Vuitton gave free reign to American painter Richard Prince and Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama to transform its leather goods in innovative ways that would cut through the mass market. James Turrell, Olafur Eliasson, Damien Hirst and Daniel Buren also put their stamp on the house’s insignia via in-store and runway artworks. And the current ArtyCapucine collection sees the work of six contemporary artists – Beatriz Milhazes, Henry Taylor, Liu Wei, Josh Smith, Jean-Michel Othoniel and Zhao Zhao – emblazoned on the front of the brand’s ladylike Capucine bags.
The affectionately-called ArtyCaps build on the special relationship between Louis Vuitton and the arts. Almost a century down the line, its commitment to innovation and raising up the work of creatives via its global platform is not to be underestimated. As Jacobs said, it’s monumental. And, as Ricco attests, these unique collections will never go out of style.
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