When Louis Vuitton and Takashi Murakami launched their first fashion-and-art mash-up in 2003, the multicolored handbags sparked a runaway sensation, selling out within hours and leaving thousands on a waiting list.
It was among the earliest artist collaborations introduced by Marc Jacobs who, as the then creative director of Louis Vuitton, pioneered the idea that a rarefied house of high fashion might invite an outsider to reimagine its signature pieces — going on to work with artists including Stephen Sprouse, Yayoi Kusama, Cindy Sherman and Richard Prince.
The Murakami collaboration, which Jacobs called “a monumental marriage of art and commerce,” changed everything, its rainbow of logos sparking a frenzy of desire. British Vogue described it as “the defining fashion collaboration of the 2000s.” At the time, Jacobs said he wanted Louis Vuitton’s offerings to burst with color and playfulness as a salve for the mourning that followed 9/11. “Fashion should bring joy to the world,” he said.
A moment of joy seems to be what the world needs now, too. This year’s Artycapucines VII Collection revives the collaboration between the French fashion house and Murakami, with the artist’s creativity unleashed to its full polychrome, gleeful, and technically dazzling extremes.
His interpretation of Europe’s high fashion domain is viewed, as he puts it, “through the lens of fantasy — stories, animation, games.” Murakami adds that the refined world he references is “rich with detail, elegance and imagination. I believe Artycapucines sits very close to that spirit, possessing a kind of fantasy point of view.”
Eleven bags, produced in editions of no more than a few hundred each, form the new collection, all designed by the artist, who has transformed the original Capucines bag design (named after the Rue des Capucines in Paris where Louis Vuitton was founded in 1854) into increasingly avant-garde sculptures and canvases. Far beyond a mere reinterpretation, these pieces incorporate three-dimensional parts and intricate surfaces.
Capucines Mini Tentacle
Capucines XXL Camo
Capucines MM Eye
Capucines Mini Autograph
Capubloom
The Mini Mushroom, for example, is festooned with more than 100 kaleidoscope-colored resin mushrooms, attached to the silver leather bag, with more fungi forms sprouting on the handle, like a dense psychedelic forest. The Mini Tentacle, meanwhile, envelops the bag with curling resin tentacles, as if an octopus were pushing through the seams, each rosy arm studded with hand-painted blue and white suckers — a masterpiece of precision craft, and a reference to Murakami’s tentacled alter ego, Mr DOB.
“I believe Louis Vuitton’s atelier has made remarkable technological advancements,” Murakami said, commenting on developments since his first collaboration more than 20 years ago. “The pursuit of high-end savoir faire at Louis Vuitton is extraordinary, and I am constantly amazed by the quality of artisanship — reaching heights even artists’ studios like mine cannot attain.”
