A Louis Vuitton Suitcase Makes Its Way Around the World in a Paris Show
A monogrammed Louis Vuitton suitcase has spent 13 years travelling with photographer Bruno Aveillan, from the Amazon jungle to the North Pole. Now the pictures he took of it are on show in Paris. WWD reported the exhibition, which opens at LV Dream, the exhibition space next to the Louis Vuitton headquarters.
The case is the Alzer 75, a model the French luxury house developed in the 1950s as a smaller option to the large trunks people once took on long journeys. Aveillan photographs it wherever he goes. In the pictures it is propped against trains, rickshaws and barges, or set down in grass, dunes and desert.
The show opens with a large image of the suitcase being loaded onto a wooden rowboat in front of the Taj Mahal. Aveillan took that picture while shooting a campaign for Shalimar, the perfume from the house Guerlain. The photographs are arranged in seven themes that follow the chapters of a book, "La Valise," published by Flammarion and Noir Editions.
Aveillan is not new to the house. He directed Louis Vuitton's first film in 2008. He also documented the work of artisans at the company's workshops in Asnières-sur-Seine, on the outskirts of Paris, for a series on craftsmanship. The book idea came from him. He approached Louis Vuitton with it a year ago.
The exhibition runs alongside the Paris Photo fair, the city's major photography fair. It also closes out a yearlong Louis Vuitton celebration of its Monogram canvas, the brown coated fabric printed with the house's interlocking initials and flower motifs. Aurélie Samuel, the company's director of art, culture and heritage, is among those behind the project.
The show also includes Alzer cases that belonged to well-known travellers. Lauren Bacall, Audrey Hepburn, André Leon Talley and Bill Wyman each had one, and their suitcases are on display alongside Aveillan's photographs.
Aveillan has said he does not plan his pictures in advance. "I never set out with a preconceived idea," he told WWD. "Once I'm there, either something happens, or it doesn't."
For a luxury house, the project shows how a product can sit in a photograph, a book and a gallery at once. The suitcase in the pictures is the same object that is sold in shops, and the exhibition lets visitors see it in places most buyers will never reach.
