In 2012, Louis Vuitton — then helmed by Marc Jacobs — teamed up with Yayoi Kusama to bring some of the most distinctive, recognizable and beloved elements of her work to the brand’s product offering. A decade later, the legendary Japanese artist and the iconic luxury house have reunited.
Their latest collaboration, first teased in May at the Louis Vuitton Cruise 2023 show by Nicolas Ghesquière, hits stores Thursday. In a press release, the brand said the relationship between the two “never ended” and that, “ten years after, it evolved and expanded with conversations continued and extended.”
As the story goes, Kusama and Jacobs first met in 2006, while filming a Loïc Prigent documentary on Louis Vuitton. Throughout his time at the helm of the luxury house, the designer famously brought in contemporary artists, from Stephen Sprouse to Richard Prince to Takashi Murakami, to lend their visual language to Louis Vuitton’s leather goods and ready-to-wear — the results of which remain much-loved today, especially on the resale market. In 2012, the brand sponsored a Kusama retrospective’s arrival at the Whitney Museum in New York City; the two announced a capsule shortly after.
The original collection spanned both accessories and apparel, Kusama-fied with dots. This new chapter sees “Kusama’s talismanic objects, motifs and imaginings of infinity take over the maison and all of its product categories,” the brand said, “from bags to menswear; womenswear to sunglasses; fragrances to shoes and accessories. In turn, there’s an evolution of some of Louis Vuitton’s own emblematic pieces, making them equally part of their own and Kusama’s transformative world.”
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The full collection — which mediates on infinity and eternity through craftsmanship — will be divided into two drops. The first is in January (China and Japan on the 1st, globally on the 6th), the second at the end of March. Drop one centers around four motifs: the infinity dots (the most widespread across the collection), the painted dots (which connect the capsule back to the original, as the print is replicated from a infinity-dotted trunk hand-painted by Kusama for Louis Vuitton in 2012), the metal dots (inspired by the mirrored orbs of her “Narcissus Garden”) and the psychedelic flower (based on her 1993 painting “Flower”).
“In line with Louis Vuitton’s past artistic collaborations, the encounter between the maison and Yayoi Kusama is grounded in sincerity, in iconoclasm and above all, in a mutual appreciation of craft and excellence over the commonplace,” the brand said, in a press release. “At Louis Vuitton, when it comes to the magic of making objects, anything is possible.”
You can shop the Louis Vuitton x Yayoi Kusama collection here. Check out a selection of the product offered — with prices — below.
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