L’Officiel Malaysia – July 2019

L’Ofciel Style 47

TAKASHI MURAKAMI

The Sprouse collaboration might have been the one that kick-

started it all, but it was the Takashi Murakami partnership

that proved to be the juggernaut that just won’t quit. Jacobs

enlisted the Japanese artist to put his whimsical, kawaii

spin on the French brand’s motifs and icons in 2003, and

the resulting pieces sparked endless wait lists and spawned

countless imitators. More than a decade has passed but who

could forget the Multicolore monogram, the Cherry Blossom,

the Monogramouflage and the cartoonish Characters prints?

Balancing fine art sensibility with blockbuster commercial

appeal, the pieces were coveted by fashion insiders and art-

world types as much as tabloid fixtures and pop stars. The

maison produced Murakami pieces for almost 13 years before

discontinuing the line, but the current nostalgia for early-

Noughties style has brought the collab to the forefront of the

fashion conversation once again.