Ever since Marc Jacobs took the creative helm of Louis Vuitton, the luxury brand has found itself collaborating with quirky, artistic talents to modernise the historic label. LV’s first drop of their latest collaboration with artist Yayoi Kusama, famous for her use of dots, will be released on 10 July, two days before a retrospective of her work opens at the Whitney Museum in New York. The second collection will drop in stores in October.
Kusama’s dots will adorn everything from pyjamas to trench coats and LV signature leather goods. A precursor of the pop art, minimalist and feminist art movement, Kusama influenced the work of Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg.
An exponent for the avant-garde style of art, Kusama has been living in the Seiwa Hospital for the Mentally Ill where she has been creating art work since the mid-1970’s.
Kusama met Marc Jacobs in Tokyo in 2006, and instantly inspired him. Jacobs convinced Louis Vuitton to provide financial backing for a retrospective of her work at London’s Tate Modern museum earlier this year. The Kusama/Louis Vuitton collaboration came about when Kusama presented Jacobs with a Louis Vuitton bag she has customised with her trademark dots.
Jacobs said of her muse “Her energy is just endless.” Through the painstaking sort of obsession in each of her canvases and installations that she’s created, you see this world that never ends. I guess that’s what I admire and that’s what I respond to in terms of feeling for her and for her work.”
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