For its upcoming ‘fashion meets art’ collaboration, Louis Vuitton may leave many of its competitors green with envy. For those that recall the Louis Vuitton x Marc Jacobs documentary shot back in 2006 by Loic Prigent, the house’s creative director revealed his special kinship with renown polka dots artist Yayoi Kusama. But little did audiences know how deep that relationship went until now, as the first retrospective dedicated to the Japanese artist bows this year. This exhibition, which invites visitors to immerse themselves into the world of Kusama, has been travelling from the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid to the Centre Pompidou in Paris, and will continue its journey to the Tate Modern in London and the Whitney Museum in New York City, next July 2012.
The famed luxury house will pay tribute to the exceptional artist for whom Marc Jacobs, Artistic Director of the House, has great admiration. A collection issued from the collaboration between Yayoi Kusama and Marc Jacobs will interpret the most emblematic artworks of Kusama.
“The obsessive character and the innocence of her artwork touched me. She succeeds in sharing her vision of the world with us.” Marc Jacobs
The admiration is mutual: Kusama, whose works include many performances which examine clothing and the body, has a profound respect for Marc’s creativity. A photo of this encounter is today hanging on the wall of the Kusama Studio in Tokyo.
The starting points for the collection were obsession and seriality. The iconic Louis Vuitton leather goods, ready-to-wear, shoes, accessories, watches and jewellery became the supports for Kusama’s organic repetitive patterns. Treated in vigorous and hybrid colours, the polka dots cover the products infinitely. All over, express the unlimited possibilities of playing with scales, colours and densities.
When the “kusamesque” figure comes to life, the patterns ripple and lead the eye into a stroboscopic game. No middle, no beginning and no end: this hallucinatory proliferation will also be relayed in the Louis Vuitton windows worldwide decorated with emblematic motifs: biomorphic shaped “nerves” sculptures for windows named “BEGINNING OF THE UNIVERSE”; flowers entitled “ETERNAL BLOOMING FLOWERS IN MY MIND” and especially red polka dots on white background among which Kusama figures named “SELF-OBLITERATION” can be spotted.
For the artist, who sees her life as “a dot lost among millions of other dots”, this collaboration will allow her to spread her polka dots infinitely across the world and convey her message: “Love Forever”. “It enables her to increase her audience and that of contemporary art in general, concludes Marc Jacobs. The task Louis Vuitton has always set itself.”
Visit louisvuittonkusama.com
See all the photos below:
Models: Anais Pouliot, Romee Strijd
Lookbook photos by Angelo Pennetta for Louis Vuitton
Photos courtesy Of Yayoi Kusama and Louis Vuitton
Wow…these are going to sell out like hotcakes