L’Of ciel Style 45
Creative Collision
When it comes to art-fashion collaborations, Louis Vuitton wrote the rulebook and
found itself transformed from venerated luggage maker to cultural force. This is the
kind of game-changing magic that can happen when two brilliant minds meet.
BY JEFFREY YANSTEPHEN SPROUSEBack in 2001, Marc Jacobs had been at the helm of Louis
Vuitton for a few years and was looking for a way to inject new
edge and energy into the Vuitton vernacular. Inspired by the
witty irreverence of Marcel Duchamp and an LV trunk he saw
in Charlotte Gainsbourg’s apartment which had been spray-
painted black by her father, Serge—Jacobs wanted to find a
way to “deface” the iconic monogram, making it new again.
Enter Stephen Sprouse, the designer and artist who electrified
the Eighties with his high-impact neons and his blurring of
the boundaries between fashion, art and design. Equal parts
punk and Pop Art, the collaboration was reprised in 2009 with
iconic Sprouse motifs like the graffiti and the supersized roses
rendered in Day-Glo hues over Vuitton classics and pieces like
T-shirts and sneakers, thus bringing the street into high fashion
before high fashion streetwear was a thing.