Louis Vuitton announced a collaboration with artist Yayoi Kusama on a series of leather goods for the brand's 2023 cruiseline collection on Monday. The collaboration is Louis Vuitton's second with the critically acclaimed and internet-famous artist, who is known for her repetitive use of dots, balls, and reflective materials.
"A handful of leather goods were premiered during Artistic Director of Women's Collections Nicolas Ghesquière's Cruise 2023 fashion show at the Salk Institute in San Diego as a celebration of the Maison's relationship with the artist and to mark the 10-year anniversary of the first collaboration," according to a press release from Louis Vuitton. When designer Marc Jacobs took over the label in 2012, Kusama's signature dots adorned scarves, dresses, shoes, and were overlaid on Louis Vuitton bags. The resulting effect was reminiscent of 1960s mod.
The new collection, which debuted on the runways of the Salk Institute in San Diego on Monday, has a completely different effect. Dots of yellow, green, white, blue, and red appear to be painted on the bags, as if attached, albeit methodically, by a mischievous child. One of Louis Vuitton's black leather bags is adorned with protruding silver balls, a nod to one of Kusama's most well-known works, Narcissus Garden (1966), in which mirrored spheres are arranged on the ground or even in shallow bodies of water.
Yesterday, only a small sample of the Yayoi Kusama x Louis Vuitton collaboration was on display. The full collection, described as "transversal" in the press release, is set to be released in January of next year.
Selena Mattei