The French fashion house finds new promotion strategies.
Louis Vuitton has announced that Series 3 of its digital and physical promotion will be held in London during its fashion week. How will this compare to Series 1 and 2, which were first unveiled in Asia? The fashion house hasn’t yet revealed what will be on display next month, but it will certainly present a new contemporary look at heritage. “It’s about letting an exhibition be restless,” said Judith Clark, curator of the new LV installment at Asnières-sur-Seine, “and it is not an exhibition, but a ‘Galerie’.”
In an interview last year, creative director of Louis Vuitton, Nicolas Ghesquière, expressed his interest in breathing fresh air into the fashion house. An innovative campaign soon followed with the help of Bruce Weber, Juergen Teller and Annie Leibovitz, three of the most iconic contemporary fashion photographers. So far the results have revealed three different collections focusing on the expression of personality through photography.
The second exhibition, “Louis Vuitton Series 2 – Past, Present and Future” took place in the heart of Hollywood to display the creative process behind the collection. This was explored through a series of thematic spaces building on Ghesquière’s inspirations. Each exhibition room allowed visitors to explore a different part of Louis Vuitton: one showcased iconic pieces in holographic projections in a blend of past and present ideas; another recreated the backstage of a Louis Vuitton fashion show.
The third series of artistic displays will feature the inspiration behind Louis Vuitton’s AW15 collection. With a huge 100,000 visitors expected, the exhibition will span thirteen rooms, giving viewers the opportunity to experience every aspect of Ghesquière’s creative process. This includes sketches of potential designs, the stitching of pieces, and insight into what goes on backstage at a fashion show. As stated by Michael Burke, chief executive of Louis Vuitton,
“Series is a part of a multi-pronged approach to communicating what’s happening in our house. It communicates the message of the season in a way that simultaneously transcends it. There’s a certain permanence. From season to season you get the ways a collection connects to the previous one, as well as to what happened 150 years ago. It’s a continuum that ties everything together from the first trunk to this collection. It’s an attempt to create permanence in an extremely volatile world.”
Designed and created in house, the third series will also feature the “Infinite Show”. This is a projection of all fifty looks from the autumn/winter collection, which will be the star of the exhibition. Following this is a gallery of the Series 3 advertising campaign shot by Teller and Weber. The exhibition will truly give fashion devotees an exclusive view of the inner workings of Ghesquière and the fashion industry as a whole.
“Hopefully those that are lucky enough to see the exhibition will see that there’s an immediacy to [Ghesquière’s] inspiration and also how much he’s been influenced by what has happened before him,” Burke explained. “They’ll see how wide-reaching his influences are and how he brings that together into something coherent.”
The exhibition will be open from the 21st of September until the 18th of October.
You can now read more about Louis Vuitton in FIB’s Masters of Fashion Vol. 38: Paris.