Six of the best – how
Louis Vuitton got a
handle on the art worldBy OSMAN AHMED38 Tatler July 2019 tatler.comUrs Fischer
Swiss artist Urs Fischer left
his Capucines as a blank
canvas, not unlike the white
cubes of most art galleries.
Instead he’s created
hyper-realistic silicon fruit
and vegetables which can
be hung on the bag as
personalised charms.Nicholas Hlobo
Nicholas Hlobo’s handbag is
hand-laced and sculptural. The South
African artist’s work reflects the
dichotomy of his modern-day
homeland and his own position and
experiences within it.Tschabalala Self
Harlem-born Tschabalala Self
reimagines the house’s visual
leitmotifs, seen through 19
different types of leather that
have been applied with
deliberately imperfect stitching.totemodernCan fashion be art? It is a
question that has forever
plagued pontificating art
and style pundits. No, Yves Saint
Laurent ruefully admitted – despite
his vast success, he was, by his own
measure, little more than a failed
painter. Yes, insist others, such as
writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, who
stated that ‘the creation of beauty is
art.’ But if there was ever a case for
saying yes loud and proud, then
surely it is at Louis Vuitton.
At the turn of the millennium,
the brand pioneered the fashion-art
collaboration as we know it, working
with downtown New York artist
Stephen Sprouse. The result was a
highlighter-neon splash of graffiti
graphics daubed across the LV
monogram – the sartorial equivalent
of Esperanto, a cipher for luxury. The
bags, along with that scarf, fused two
genres and were a revelation, draping
the necks and shoulders of It Girls for
more than a decade.
That was just the start. Since
then, there have been more LV
partnerships, from Takashi Murakami
(the rainbow monogram on white
leather – think Mean Girls) to Yayoi
Kusama (yellow and red polka dots
galore) via Jeff Koons (masterpieces
by da Vinci, van Gogh, Manet et al- an ironic homage to museum
gift-shop merchandise).
Now, Louis Vuitton has collabo-
rated with six names from global art
powerhouse Gagosian Gallery on a
limited-edition line of its coveted
Capucines handbag. Only 300 will
go on sale in London; 3,000 world-
wide. Catch one if you can.
Alex Israel
Alex Israel’s sun-drenched
Californian dŽgradŽ design is
the result of experimentation
with leathers to find those best
suited to high-definition digital
printing and a lustrous finish.07-19BYSTLV.indd 38 08/05/2019 14:53