Therese Bonney
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Around the turn of the last century, one women’s magazine offered a word of advice to its fashion-forward readership. “They were advised on what to choose between—a handbag or a car with a driver,” notes curator and historian Olivier Saillard. “Obviously, the editors advocated the driver!”
Of course, Victorian ladies of means didn’t necessarily have to make that choice. In an era when women’s travel, even by car, remained restricted, “luggage, by becoming lighter, became an issue of autonomy,” Saillard explains. “Women no longer needed drivers or husbands to orchestrate their lives. Their bags were essential to their independence.”
Saillard knows whereof he speaks. The current director of Paris’s Palais Galliera and the curator of retrospectives on Azzedine Alaïa and Madame Grès, he has been customizing his newest project, the Louis Vuitton exhibit Volez, Voguez, Voyagez (“Fly, Sail, Travel”), to suit each stopover on a four-city tour. After stays in Paris, Seoul, and Tokyo, the show, which examines the way the house has accessorized some of the most storied adventures of the past 150 years, is currently on view in New York, at a sprawling space in the financial district—and features new chapters on LV’s American clientele and former artistic director Marc Jacobs’s graffiti-scrawled collaborations with New York designer Stephen Sprouse.
Mirrorpix + Tom King
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Vuitton’s association with travel stemmed from the founder’s youth, when he made the trek from his home in Anchay, in eastern France, to Paris—a journey that took two years on foot (including stops to pick up trip-funding odd jobs along the way). In 1854, he established his house, which became known for bags that were simultaneously lightweight and sturdy. His big break came as the official leather-goods outfitter to Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoleon—a client whose social standing helped the young designer gain access to the French aristocracy. Soon he had acquired a high-flying clientele of boldface names who needed their fair share of luggage; in the nineteenth century, the standard transatlantic set included 26 trunks, though actress Sarah Bernhardt brought 200 pieces of LV luggage with her on an excursion to Brazil. Mary Pickford carried LV wares onboard the cruise ship Lapland, with husband Douglas Fairbanks; Anna Magnani piled on suitcases and trunks for a 1960 voyage to Paris. Greta Garbo even ordered a custom shoe trunk from the house.
In addition to Hollywood types, Louis Vuitton has always catered to female adventurers, including explorer Blanche de Clermont-Tonnerre, who commissioned three trunks to fit into a collapsible horse-drawn carriage in 1910 (she brought back a live polar bear from her travels, though it’s not clear whether she stowed it in the trunk), and aviator Jacqueline Cochran. “Louis Vuitton always responds to special and personalized orders for adventurous women,” Saillard says, noting the recent inclusion of South Korean champion skater Yuna Kim’s trunk, which is customized to hold her skates and gear, in the Seoul exhibition.
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Courtesy
Along the way, the house’s clients have influenced the handbag styles it produces— from Coco Chanel, whose demand for a smaller edition of the Alma Voyage bag resulted in the still-produced Alma top-handle, to Audrey Hepburn, who brought the Speedy into being after requesting a more compact version of the Keepall duffel. Then there are the notable women who have designed bags according to their own specifications: Sofia Coppola’s sleek SC; Rei Kawakubo’s Monogram bag with avant-garde holes; Vivienne Westwood’s East London–hipster–worthy bum bag; Yayoi Kusama’s dot-bedecked series; and Cindy Sherman’s trunk with compartments for the props she uses to assemble her disguises. One of Saillard’s personal standouts from the show? “Elizabeth Taylor’s luggage series, with the label attached to each suitcase: ‘Mine!’”
This article originally appears in the December 2017 issue of ELLE.
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