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Louis Vuitton And Takashi Murakami Celebrate Their 20-Year Union With An Expansion Of Their Collection

It's a collaboration that's setting the fashion world alight with its promise of art and luxury.
Published: January 22, 2025
Louis Vuitton And Takashi Murakami Celebrate Their 20-year Union With An Expansion Of Their OG Collection
Photo: Courtesy of Louis Vuitton

In 2004, Japanese star of contemporary art Takashi Murakami orchestrated his first collaboration with Louis Vuitton. At the time, Marc Jacobs, artistic director for the brand and a great art lover, asked the Japanese troublemaker to reinvent the brand’s monogram—a first for the fashion house. The result was a logo revisited by the artist in no less than 33 colours, shaking up a multitude of canvas bags. It was a collaboration that bound art and luxury, setting the fashion world alight.

Related article: Louis Vuitton X Takashi Murakami: Celebrating 20 Years Of Collaboration With An Exclusive Pop-Up In Singapore

Louis Vuitton And Takashi Murakami Celebrate Their 20-year Union With An Expansion Of Their OG Collection
Photo: Courtesy of Nick Shaw

Since then, several models have remained in the permanent collection, and the relationship between the brand and the artist has remained so strong that they have decided to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their creative collaboration with an XXL reissue of the collection.

Related article: Zendaya Makes Her Bid For Best Dressed In Custom Louis Vuitton At The 2025 Golden Globes

Louis Vuitton And Takashi Murakami Celebrate Their 20-year Union With An Expansion Of Their OG Collection
Photo: Courtesy of Nick Shaw

The “Louis Vuitton x Murakami” programme will offer more than 200 creations, including iconic bags such as the Keepall, the Coussin, the Dauphine, and the Speedy, as well as belts, wallets, sandals, and glasses, all featuring the artist’s emblematic floral and LV prints in interlaced technicolour.

Related article: See Saoirse Ronan Make Her Stunning Louis Vuitton Campaign Debut

Louis Vuitton And Takashi Murakami Celebrate Their 20-year Union With An Expansion Of Their OG Collection
Photo: Courtesy of Nick Shaw

Murakami’s Superflat Panda, a playful and unmissable figure in the artist’s bestiary, also graces several bags, a wallet, sneakers, and even a skateboard, whilst perfume bottles and cases will be adorned with a garden of embellished flowers.

This pop and kawaii universe—the trademark of this artist who has mastered classical Japanese painting—skilfully combines certain codes with those of American pop culture and the iconography of Japanese manga and cartoons. And with good reason: The young Murakami was, like his entire generation, an avid reader of the colourful, childlike comics that emerged after the war, as a response to the trauma it left behind.

After graduating from Tokyo University of the Arts, he created a cohort of manga-inspired characters that, on closer inspection, seem less harmless than they appear. Among them, his Mister DOB (a mouse that looks like the Japanese interpretation of Mickey Mouse), as well as his hilarious flowers with faces, and his Kaikai and Kiki characters who would one day give their name to the artist’s independent business.

Louis Vuitton And Takashi Murakami Celebrate Their 20-year Union With An Expansion Of Their OG Collection
Photo: Courtesy of Emilie Erbin

In a huge workshop located in the suburbs of Tokyo, where some two hundred employees work in silence, this workaholic dreams up countless projects. It was here that he prepared his exhibition at the Chateau de Versailles in 2010, created his music videos for Billie Eilish and Pharrell Williams, and orchestrated his huge fresco retracing the history of the economy through a series of pixelated characters two years ago. It is also where he worked on this fruitful reissue for Louis Vuitton, which will unfold in three chapters. The first is currently available in stores, while the second drop happens this March. Joy awaits!

(PRODUCT PHOTOS)
Photographer EMILIE ERBIN
Stylist & Fashion Editor ALEXANDRA BERNARD
Graphic Design Director MARINE LE BRIS
Producer YANNICK SELVA
Stylist’s Assistant MAEVA MALLIER

(FASHION PHOTOS)
Photographer NICK SHAW
Stylist NAOMI SMITH
Model OLGA OBUMOVA/IMG Paris
Hairstylist JOEL PHILLIPS
Make-up Artist TENEILLE SORGIOVANNI
Creative Producer CAMILLE PECK
Stylist’s Assistant SARA BEVAGNA

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