Halfway through LV Dream exhibition, there is ‘The World of Vuitton According to Rei’ conceptual room, a homage to Comme des Garçons artistic director, Rei Kawakubo
Discover Louis Vuitton Dream
On December twelve, the 160-year-old French Maison Louis Vuitton unveiled ‘LV Dream’, a cultural and culinary exhibition located in Paris, at the former La Belle Jardinière building – a Parisian department store during the second half of the 19th century. Open to the public, upon free reservation on Louis Vuitton website, the space comprises an exhibition with a gift shop, café and chocolate shop in partnership with Pastry Chef of Cheval Blanc Paris, Maxime Frédéric.
Immersive elements are displayed throughout this interactive showcase: from a never-seen-before digital portrait of Louis Vuitton by artist Cao Fei to travel trunks, centenary perfume bottle designs to a giant version of Rei Kawakubo’s Bags with Holes and interactive digital walls depicting collaborations between the Maison and creatives including Daniel Buren, Nigo, Grace Coddington and Christopher Nemeth. The exhibition traces a pioneering journey from 1854 until modern days.
To extend the experience, LV Dream also introduced ‘Maxime Frédéric at Louis Vuitton’ – a café and chocolate shop with specially developed selection of fresh pastries and assortment of chocolates that play on the Maison’s motifs. Finally, in the gift shop, visitors can browse items developed with an exclusive LV Dream design, along with a selection of small leather goods, accessories, fragrances, and publishing.
Louis Vuitton by Cao Fei and Yan Pei Ming
LV Dream’s exhibition begins with two portraits’ rooms as an homage to Louis Vuitton himself. In the first one, Mr. Louis by Cao Fei, an immersive digital version of Louis is displayed, demonstrating how a historical portrait can be interpreted through today’s technology.
The second one, ‘Louis Vuitton: As Seen By’, is filled with portraits by Yan Pei Ming, Mister Cartoon, Alex Katz and Refik Anadol that capture the spirit of Louis Vuitton. These pieces are accompanied by some creations from the past century, including the Stokowski secretary desk, a trunk from 1890 that belonged to photographer Paul Nadar and Damien Hirst’s medical cabinet.
Origins room, Art on Silk, The Reinterpreting Icon
There is the photography-paneled ‘Origins room’, which shows designs counterposed with artistic collaborations, done over the years, on a psychedelic background. Each grouping of objects, from perfumes to trunks, creates a connection between early examples of savoir-faire and newer creations; reaffirming also how Louis Vuitton has constantly worked across art, design, and craft.
The ‘Art on Silk’ room displays the silk scarf as a medium from which artists, such as Sol LeWitt, James Rosenquist, Gae Aulenti, have interpreted the world of the Maison.
‘The Reinterpreting Icons’ room commemorates the designers, artists and minds, such as Karl Lagerfeld, Cindy Sherman and Christian Louboutin, who reworked and transformed the Monogram in 1996 for its centenary, and again in 2014. This range of interpretations, exposed in a mirrored space on LV monogram-shaped podiums, highlights each person’s individual identity and personal relationship with the Maison.
Comme des Garçons artistic director, Rei Kawakubo
Halfway through the exhibition, there is ‘The World of Vuitton According to Rei’ conceptual room, which is a homage to Comme des Garçons artistic director, Rei Kawakubo. Rei envisioned two capsule collections for Louis Vuitton: ‘Party Bags’ in 2008 and ‘Bags with Holes’ in 2014, which subverted the Louis Vuitton tradition. The particularity of this room lies in the visuals: bags are showcased through different scaled holes that characterize both the walls and the entrance, giving the visitors the feeling of being inside the actual bag.
Leather Goods in Fashion, Bags as Blank Canvas, Art Meets Fashion
‘Leather Goods in Fashion’ is dedicated to two artists – Takashi Murakami and Yayoi Kusama – whose collaborations blended the Louis Vuitton heritage with Pop Art playfulness. This room showcases the bags alongside the corresponding ready-to-wear collections and other accessories, emphasizing the language of Louis Vuitton partnerships.
‘Bags as Blank Canvas’ is the theme of the following room, which is composed of variations on the Monogram and the Artycapucines collection. From Stephen Sprouse’s spray-painted graffiti lettering and Jeff Koons transposing of Monet’s Nymphéas, to the eighteen contemporary artists who have redecorated the signature Capucines bag.
Finally, there is the ‘Art Meets Fashion’ room, which brings together the artists who have worked with Louis Vuitton’s men’s and women’s artistic directors since the Maison introduced fashion in 1998. From Daniel Buren and Richard Prince with Marc Jacobs to Nigo® with Virgil Abloh. In addition to the runway looks, this room features a digital, interactive wall that projects motion-sensitive animations adapted from several collaborations.
Le café et la chocolaterie by Maxime Frédéric
Upstairs at the LV Dream exhibition, Louis Vuitton presents a dedicated café and chocolate shop – Maxime Frédéric at Louis Vuitton. The two spaces incorporate a vegetal setting made out of tropical plants, marble tables and oak curvilinear counters, from which Frédéric’s various creations can be enjoyed. For this occasion, the Chef Pâtissier of the Cheval Blanc Paris translated Louis Vuitton’s motifs into a selection of patisseries, as he did for the chocolaterie, developing Damier-shaped tablettes, a chocolate marshmallow Vivienne, Monogram bonbons among other confectionaries, which all come packaged in emblematic boxes. Through savoir-faire, hand-craftsmanship and selected raw materials, as it happens with leather goods-making, Frédéric managed to realize creations suitable for children to adults.
The LV Dream gift store
Above the LV Dream exhibition, along with the café and the chocolate shop, Louis Vuitton also opened a dedicated gift shop. This store provides a wide range of products, from books to fragrances, homewares, publishing and sunglasses, along with some items exclusive to the exhibition such as luggage tags, card holders and totes that feature the LV Dream logo, all displayed on an organic and undulating layout.
LV Dream
2, rue du Pont-Neuf, Paris 1er, Paris, France. The French Maison Louis Vuitton launched ‘LV Dream’, a cultural and culinary exhibition at the former La Belle Jardinière building. The exhibition explores and celebrates Louis Vuitton’s ongoing dialogue between the past and the future, heritage and modernity, Paris and abroad, savoir-faire and innovation, with a special focus on historic and contemporary collaborations.
