31 Dec Viva Vuitton!

Famed luxury goods house Louis Vuitton has brought to New York a spectacular exhibition of the company’s wares and fashions. Suitably displayed in a beautiful art deco building on Trinity Place, once the site of New York’s first indoor stock exchange, Volez, Voguez, Voyagez whisks you away into another world.

All aboard for Vuitton!

Antique tools of the trade.

Starting with a video animation of New York City subway cars adorned with various Vuitton patterns and beckoning you onboard, the viewer is invited through a series of rooms. The rooms catalogue and display the history of the French family who started the company and the successive generations who continued on throughout various important periods of innovation, forever changing to keep pace with the times and their illustrious clientele who fancied specific products for unique needs.

The rooms are decadently detailed to evoke the theme of the displays and fully immerse you in whatever world you have entered. The primary thematic element is the concept of travel and the way Louis Vuitton created every conceivable item for various forms of movement, whether by ship, train, car or plane. Every mode was meticulously studied with products methodically produced to provide for each expectation.

The classic trunk.

A traveling trunk just for shoes!

Exceptional craftsmanship and foresight is the key to its fame and longevity in an industry known for being fickle and trendy. Louis Vuitton has managed to stay abreast of current fashions by understanding the basic and current needs of their customers and continually evolving with those needs while also creating desire, the ultimate motivator in fashion purchases.

This large featured bag is the forerunner for what would be become the “carry on.” These large bags were used for everything from dirty laundry to transporting extra china. Fashions of the period are those that would be worn when traveling by ship or yacht.

With Vuitton’s “bed in a trunk” you’ll never not have a place to sleep, even when traveling through the Sahara! Contemporary bags surround this special design including some designed for the film The Darjeeling Limited.

In case you wish to drive out to the country for a picnic (comes with complete silver service).

And one should never travel without their books! This special trunk features a lid that doubles as a reading and writing pad.

Essentials for traveling by train, which include pieces slightly smaller in scale.

Flying high with Vuitton–the birth of air travel for pleasure!

Hollywood loves Vuitton! Featured here are clothing and luggage pieces owned by Mary Pickford. Many celebrities and foreign dignitaries have traveled with Vuitton luggage and continue to do so to this day.

A creative “play station” for the artist/photograher Cindy Sherman.

The exhibition closes with a modern take on the house, including creations by once creative director Marc Jacobs, trunks by Damien Hirst and even a special commission to honor the artist Cindy Sherman.

Damien Hirst’s modern take on the classic Vuitton trunk.

Forever imaginative and sparing no degree of luxury, Louis Vuitton created a company that endures the rocky waves of fashion and the family did it by simply adhering to a strict aesthetic combined with a classic business model—creating a solid product that is beautiful as well as something practical you simply can’t live without.

Louis Vuitton: Volez, Voguez, Voyagez runs through January 7.