It is not every day that one turns 200 years old, and for a bicentennial birthday, you either go big or go home. The ultimate celebration of creativity from around the globe. Louis Vuitton truly thought outside the box and asked 200 of their favorite visionaries and creatives to design and personalize their very own trunk, with the dimensions inspired by the iconic 1850s Louis Vuitton trunk. An exhibition that has traveled from its home in France all the way to Singapore, then to sunny Los Angeles, with the last stop being the big apple, New York City.
With such a grand and extraordinary exhibition comes even greater masterminds behind the scenes. Faye McLeod, the Visual Image Director, and Ansel Thompson, the Senior Art Director at Louis Vuitton, are behind this one-of-a-kind exhibition and many other of the most praised Louis Vuitton displays and exhibitions.
They have been with Louis Vuitton for over a decade, and throughout their time with the brand, they have pushed limits, broken barriers, and “are the rebels of the company,” as Faye explained. The team works very differently than most teams; everyone is given the freedom to design and create in their own way, “we have no rules,” the team can draw inspiration and ideas from anywhere they’d like. They have been true pioneers in the visual merchandising world when it comes to technology. By experimenting with and embracing it, they created things never seen before. “We have used computers to design and create 3D worlds. We’ve been creating human forms. So a lot of the mannequins have been three dimensional scans and prints.”, Ansel shares.
This exhibit found its home in a very iconic New York City location, no other than the old Barney’s building. Opening October 14th, they wanted to give New York “a space to have fun in, again.” As many New Yorkers can agree, “we needed a bit of joy in the city,” Faye and Ansel expressed.
“I remember being 18 years old with my hands against the glass kind of dreaming of doing windows in this space. And Simon Doonan is someone I hugely admire. So it’s kind of like a real dream come true. I think New York is so important in the world of windows and I think it is, It’s such a great building and such an institution.” Faye shares. “We, we’ve always checked out the Barney’s windows and we used to have a studio that was just down the road. So it’s always been an influence really. So to actually be able to build in them is quite a big deal.” Ansel adds.
You can see trunks designed by astrologer Susan Miller, designer Kim Jones, French pilot Franky Zapata, Spanish architect Alfredo Muñoz, designer Marc Jacobs, and journalist Gloria Steinem to name a few.
Their main objective was to mix as many people as possible; the more diverse, the better. They went the non-traditional route and chose visionaries from all paths of life. Starting off with an initial list of 485 potential visionaries for the project, they had to slim it down to 200. They are not your regular creatives in the fashion industry; Ansel and Faye shared that they got “musicians, poets, scientists, astrologers, and we even tried to get someone that grows mushrooms” all on board to create a celebration of creativity and diversity “the real heart of Vuitton.” Faye tells us how their team truly wanted to inspire and encourage anyone, no matter their background or industry/field of work, “anyone that can dream, can have an idea, and can get that idea out there.”
Virgil Abloh, the Artistic Director of Louis Vuitton, was incredibly collaborative in this project. Faye shares “Virgil was really instrumental in this project. So when we went to Virgil with the idea, the next day after the WhatsApp messages, we, we’ve said, okay, this is the idea of the project. And the next morning I woke up and we had 40 suggestions of who to work with. He was like, this is amazing. So he was really supportive in it. We have his trunk here and then some of his mates as well. There’s some amazing trunks from Virgil’s friends that are here.”
All good things cannot last forever, but Faye and Ansel pointed out that they would want people to leave this exhibit “full of ideas and an awareness of how creativity is at the heart of Louis Vuitton. We want people to leave being inspired to create something.” They are not only inspiring the people that come to the exhibit to go out and turn their dreams and visions into real projects, but they are giving them a space to do so at the basement level of this building. “The Workshop” will host various activities on an ongoing basis. Some of the 200 visionaries will come into The Workshop to work with people allowing and inspiring them to create their own trunk box.
Closing off their 200th year with a bang, on December 31st, the exhibit will come to a close, but it does not stop there. After its grand exit, all trunks will be auctioned off at Sotheby’s. All proceeds from the trunks will be donated to various charity organizations which help creatives and visionaries through their creative endeavors. Hoping to truly make a change and not only encourage but help all of those visionaries transform their ideas into a reality.