The new Louis Vuitton x Yayoi Kusama collaboration puts peas in the big ones

It has marked the history of art with its multicolored polka dots, but also the history of fashion. Yayoi Kusama, who will turn 94 in March 2023, signs a new collaboration with Louis Vuitton, which was just released on January 5, 2023.

Why is Louis Vuitton doing another collaboration with Yayoi Kusama?

If you ever get a feeling of déjà vu in the face of this information, it’s because the illustrious Japanese artist and the great French trunk manufacturer already made a collab’ in 2012. A small flashback: 2006, Marc Jacobs, then artistic director of the house, visited the studio of Yayoi Kusama in Tokyo, of which he was a fan. He then painted his LV bag with a few dots. This is what gave the idea to do a collab ‘in good and due form a few years later. Almost a decade later, we’re harkening back to the good old days, but also in the hope that these cheerful, colorful polka dots will bring joy back to the traumatized world.

And it’s the kind of ultra-collector’s limited edition that ticks the clock and resells at exorbitant prices. Do you remember Stephen Sprouse who tagged the famous Monogram canvas in 2001 or Takashi Murakami who made it multicolored on a white background in 2003 (with Paris Hilton as unofficial ambassador)? Well, this allows the house to assert its status as a friend of the artists, therefore to benefit from their symbolic capital, in order to grant itself even more value (which helps to justify the sale of these pieces to a greater economic capital).

An extraordinary campaign for the collaboration of the Louis Vuitton x Yayoi Kusama collector

For 2022, Louis Vuitton and Yayoi Kusama are doing it again with a collection called “Creating Infinity” of over 400 pieces (clothing, accessories, perfumes and even some trunks). We find the distinctive motifs of the plastic artist: the Painted dots, stapled dots, infinity dots And Psychedelic flower. Contrary to appearances, these are not simple multicolored polka dot prints on oilcloth or leather, but a technique of embossed screen printing that tries to imitate the artist’s real brushstroke as closely as possible.

And this goes beyond the pieces offered for sale as an extraordinary communication campaign is already shaking up social networks and the windows of the 460 Louis Vuitton boutiques around the world. Just enough to reach a wider audience than art galleries and museums (you don’t have to be a customer of the trunk maker to come across one of the installations full of gourds and peas). Furthermore, it was such an event that the artist exceptionally left the psychiatric hospital where she lived for almost fifty years to pose for the advertising campaign, as reported Le Figaro. And it could also be one of the Japanese visual artist’s latest projects, alas.

While most of Louis Vuitton’s iconic models (namely Speedy, Noé, Alma, Neverfull or even Keepall) increase in value every year, their second-hand side is even more valuable. edition with artists. Enough to inspire people looking for a bag that can make a “good investment”.

Cover photo: FeiFei Sun, Anok Yai and Gisele Bündchen photographed by Steven Meisel for the Louis Vuitton x Yayoi Kusama campaign.