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10th Anniversary Celebration spawns a second colorful fashion collaboration with international artist
YAYOI KUSAMA X LOUIS VUITTON | ART X FASHION By Rachel Vancelette
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ouis Vuitton recently announced the latest new collaboration with contemporary Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, who continues to be sought after by art and fashion enthusiasts alike. Many recount the most recent spring sale in 2019 of Kusama’s artwork Interminable Net #4, 1959, which went for a staggering 14.8 million USD at Sotheby›s Hong Kong Contemporary Art Sales shattering records for the artist. At 92, Kusma has become the very first woman in the top 10 global artists with the best-ever annual auction total from the sale of over 700 lots, according to Artprice. com. Her international celebrity continues to bring color to our lives, leaving us wanting more! Yayoi Kusama continues to dazzle global audiences with her immersive “Infinity Mirror Rooms” and a unique aesthetic that embraces anything from light, polka dots, and pumpkins. Crowds line up on the street for hours to see her latest art installations, window displays, and art exhibitions; David Zwirner›s art gallery exhibitions of the artist have continued to hit all-time audience attendance numbers. The artist first rose to prominence in 1960s New York, where she staged provocative Happenings and exhibited hallucinatory paintings of loops and dots that she called «Infinity Nets.” Kusama is known to have even influenced Andy Warhol and continues to be the subject of major exhibitions worldwide, including the Museum of Modern Art, Centre Pompidou, Tate Modern, and the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo. So if one cannot afford to get a multi-million dollar artwork, why not grab yourself a new LV handbag with the artist’s iconic colorful painted dots, reflective materials, and more? Louis Vuttion’s Instagram took in over 150,000 views right after revealing the very first videos of the reinterpretations of the artists’ creative process of obsessive colorful dots for the new LV 2023
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collection. Many remember Kusama’s impressive first collection arriving in force on full display in the Soho Store in New York (under the direction of Marc Jacobs) many years ago. It entranced and engulfed the entire LV store with her acclaimed artwork covering handbags, wallets, and luxury items throughout the store and with window displays pouring over with dots and installations, startling visitors and engaging new audiences worldwide. The advent of the store becoming like an art institution started to take hold in the early 2000s and now today can undoubtedly be seen on-trend in stores from H&M x Jeff Koons to today Van Cleef & Arpels beautiful displays on the store facade... to the street... to inside the store of contemporary artist Alexandre Benjamin Navet.
Many art collectors, fashion enthusiasts, and handbag lovers continue the countdown for the new selections of art leather goods, some newly designed store windows and art exhibitions. Perhaps the lifelike mannequin of Kusama will reappear in the window, warming us all for the cold winter month of January 2023 when all is to be released.
“As a celebration of the Maison’s relationship with the artist and to mark the 10-year anniversary of the first collaboration, 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,” stated in the press release from Louis Vuitton.
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