With its latest collaborations with New York-based streetwear brand Supreme and Fragment design streaking across industry Instagram feeds at a rapid rate, Louis Vuitton just unveiled its new collection of accessories with artist Jeff Koons. The collection, called Masters by Louis Vuitton X Jeff Koons, is set to hit stores on April 28 for Spring 2017. Taking works from the New York designer’s Gazing Ball paintings – large-scale handpainted riffs of renowned masterpieces by Leonardo da Vinci, Rubens, Van Gogh, Titian, and Fragonard – the luxury French fashion house has unleashed next-level technology to reproduce the artworks on the canvas of its most iconic handbags. The LV Speedy, Keepall, and the Neverfull are artfully reimagined with Koons’ contemporary interpretations of the Old Masters, making for a collection that is both witty and oh-so wearable.
Naturally, the launch of the collaboration wouldn’t be 2017 without video that projects the creative merger into the so-shareable, digital stratosphere that is available on YouTube. “We both had the same objective: we wanted to make something that really uses material, texture, and color to communicate and create something desirable. So there was tremendous freedom,” Koons told Vogue UK. Further making fashion history, the closely guarded Louis Vuitton Monogram has been reworked for the first time ever to hold the initials of Koons – a moment to note for all aficionados of the brand.
The Louis Vuitton teaser for its Jeff Koons collaboration was first revealed on the brand’s Instagram account four days ago, and gathered more than 65 000 likes in quick succession. @louisvuitton | Instagram
Not content with such detailing alone, the Koons collaboration also steps inside the interior of the bags to include an inset bio and portrait of the original Master of the remixed works. The artist’s signature also dangles from the bags in the form of a leatherwork cut-out of the inflatable rabbit, a motif of Koons’ contemporary artistry.
Louis Vuitton’s ongoing dialogue with the world of high art has seen the maison open the art museum Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris by Frank Gehry, and collaborate with Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince, and Daniel Buren, to name but a few. This collaboration will be unveiled in stages, with the first drop going into stores on April 28 and further projects of art and LV luxury yet to come. Watch this space.
Louis Vuitton X Jeff Koons will be available in boutiques worldwide from April 28, 2017.
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