Clockwise from above:
Louis Vuitton’s 149
New Bond Street
store in about 1902.
The artist Sarah
Crowner. Peter Marino’s
vision for the London
flagship storeLeft: a Yayoi Kusama shop
window for Louis Vuitton.
Below: the Cindy Sherman
Vuitton ‘studio in a trunk’F
ortuitously for aesthetes seeking further visual
enlightenment after Frieze has drawn to a close, Louis
Vuitton’s magnificent Mayfair maison reopens at the
end of this month – and it is almost as much art gallery
as it is atelier. Continuing a great tradition, while also looking to the
future, today the house is best known as a global luxury brand. Yet
one can still simply step in to the store and commission an individual
trunk – just as clients would have done in the 19th century when the
Vuitton name was associated purely with bespoke leather luggage.
After all, this is the company from which Matisse ordered his
custom-designed suitcases, and was the name of choice for Euro-
pean art dealers, whose chests were fitted with slim, flat drawers for
conveying delicate canvases and framed sketches as they crossed
the continent. Since then, some of the world’s most imaginative and
avant-garde artists have linked arms with the brand:
the photographer Dora Maar carried the ‘Marceau’
tote in the 1950s; in 2012, Yayoi Kusama set store
windows alight with her cult crimson-and-white
spotted collaboration; and, two years later, Cindy
Sherman dreamt up a ‘studio in a trunk’, which the
Vuitton workshop duly crafted.
Luminaries of fashion, film and literature, from
Elsa Schiaparelli and Greta Garbo to Christian Dior
and Ernest Hemingway, have also carried cases
made by the Paris atelier. As such, it seems fitting
that the reimagined flagship on Bond Street brings
together these different disciplines under its roof.
The extensive, four-storey site has been conceived
by the architect Peter Marino, who has worked with
the house since 1994. ‘Here, we have moved away
from all the brown wood we used at the beginning,’
he says. ‘There has been a real evolution towards
something lighter, clearer and, dare I say, happier.’
His design is a masterclass in the power of paring
back: clean-cut, voluminous spaces clad in the palest
French stone provide a quiet backdrop for the spectacular treasures
that hang from its walls and rails.
At seven metres wide, one of the most striking of these is a site-
specific canvas by the New York-based artist Sarah Crowner, for
which she drew inspiration from a graphic 1960s tapestry by the
Swedish modernist Lennart Rodhe. ‘These colours are even sharper
and brighter than I usually use; I wanted a bold strength to hold the
space. I like the dynamic push and pull between a painting and its
environment, which is particularly interesting in a store. Think
of Andy Warhol’s shop-window displays or the ones by Robert
Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns,’ she says. ‘When they look at it,
I’m hoping people will feel energised by the buoyant forms and
vibrancy.’ Crowner regularly works with seamstresses – for this
piece, 57 panels painted coral, fuchsia, teal and white have been
stitched together. ‘I pattern-cut like a tailor would. The work is
almost like a suit or gown that has been stretched onto a frame,’ she
reflects. ‘So there’s this great connection.’
Other highlights include a serene off-yellow Andreas Gursky
and a rainbow custom-fit staircase by the Scottish artist Jim Lambie,
but for those wishing to acquire as well as admire, there will also be
the full range of Louis Vuitton’s wildly inventive, travel-inspired
furniture collaborations – the ‘Objets Nomades’ – available for the
first time in the UK. These range from coffee tables by the Paris-
based designer India Mahdavi to sculptural paper and leather lampsST Y LE
PHOTOGRAPHS: © ARCHIVES LOUIS VUITTON MALLETIER, COURTESY OF LOUIS VUITTON, STÉPHANE MURATET, SASKIA WILSON, © PETER MARINO ARCHITECT