How Louis Vuitton’s Beauty Line Was Inspired By 1920s Art Deco Culture

Louis Vuitton Art Déco exhibition at LV Dream

Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton has launched new exhibition Louis Vuitton Art Déco at its LV Dream showcase space in Paris, a stone’s throw from the city’s Pont Neuf.

Playing out over eight themed rooms with upwards of 300 heritage objects and archival materials, the exhibition marks the 100th anniversary of the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts which took place in Paris in 1925. It spotlights the legacy of Gaston-Louis Vuitton, grandson of the Maison’s founder and showcases the house’s deep connection to the artistic movement.

In the early 20th century the Vuitton scion spearheaded partnerships with artists and designers of the day such as Pierre-Émile Legrain, Camille Cless-Brothier and Gaston Le Bourgeois which were showcased at the 1925 exhibition under the banner Éditions d’art.

The privilege of a 170 year heritage is having 170 years of culture and storytelling at your disposal through which to ground and legitimise continued evolution.

Take the Maison’s recent foray into makeup with La Beauté Louis Vuitton by Pat McGrath, its inaugural cosmetics collection. Communication around the exhibition notes that inspiration can be traced back to its first the toiletry kits and grooming sets such as a Milano lined suitcase, originally displayed in 1925 and now on show once more at LV Dream.

The brushes, featuring carved grooves slide in and out on runners ensuring that their bristles don’t get crushed. The silhouettes are a nod to New York’s geometric skyscrapers, symbols of the Art Déco design language while exemplifying the movement’s defining technical ingenuity.

Elsewhere an oval vanity table in black and red lacquer designed in collaboration with Legrain was displayed alongside a sketch by the 1920s multi-hyphenate.

The movement’s defining technical ingenuity shared by Vuitton creations of the era was further evinced by the Maison’s trunks such as the shoe secretary and modular auto trunk. The latter was made to measure for early automobiles which didn’t come with the ‘trunks’ of contemporary parlance. Said trunks featured drawer sections which served as suitcases in their own right when they were detached from the mothership.

Their purpose—as in the transportation of garments and accessories—is the fil rouge that connects the Maison’s origins as a trunk maker with the fashion house it was to become.

Even the seemingly modern concept of personalisation can be traced back to trunks created for personalities of the time like Jeanne Lanvin and Paul Poiret.

I recently listened to a podcast with Ledger Chief Experience Officer Ian Rodgers, former Chief Digital Officer at LVMH and incidentally responsible for Apple Music’s streaming services before he left to join the Group.

He described how, with his startup mentality, he’d originally “laughed out loud” on hearing they “took a 100 year time horizon when they think about their brands” but soon came to realise “that the brand is the asset” so “you have to think longterm.”

The exhibition also features a reconstruction of the Louis Vuitton stand at the 1025 exhibition alongside Gaston-Louis Vuitton’s contributions to the art of window displays and promotional materials while archival pieces from the 1920s are displayed in dialogue with contemporary creations like Creative Director of Women’s Collections, Nicolas Ghesquière’s 2020 Cruise collection inspired by New York’s Art Deco architecture and looks by Men’s Creative Director, Pharrell Williams—alongside those of Marc Jacobs and Kim Jones riffing off the energy of the Jazz Age.