100 Legendary Louis Vuitton Trunks

Would I call this work a book ? Maybe not. What, then ? A work of art, a compendium, a catalog. But it does have pages, 500 of them, and lavish illustrations, hundreds of those, it's made of bound printed paper, so it must be a book. an extra large and heavy one, which reminds readers of just what the book is about: Louis Vuitton's outstanding trunks. "Show me your luggage and I'll tell you who you are", a 1921 advertising slogan from Vuitton sums it up. In those times, the Roaring Twenties, wealthy customers did not travel light. It took a week to cross the Atlantic aboard luxury liners, almost as long to reach Istanbul from London on the Orient Express train. But business people and celebrities and well off writers travelled extensively. Not all of them could afford Louis Vuitton luggage, but people like Douglas Fairbanks, Jeanne Lanvin, and maharadjahs could. Louis Vuitton, the founder of a trunk company, was born in 1821 and opened his business and his first Paris store in 1854, with a workshop that still exists today in Asnières, a western suburb of Paris. By 1885, he opened a London branch, while his son Georges conceived the famous monogram canvas. In 1931, Vuitton set up a pavilion in the International Colonial Exposition, a tent supported by a 20 foot totem. More recently, came the extraordinary Asian expansion, the Louis-Vuitton Cup, the merger that led to the creation of the conglomerate LVMH, number 1 luxury brand in the world. Despite this unpaired success, the luggage industry, at least in the Vuitton way, remains a question of craftsmanship: You need only read all these offbeat technical terms like "bevel", "hasp" or "perloir", or admire these pictures of handmade straps, taps, latches, and buckles. Over the top maybe, but Vuitton never apologizes for its over the top prices : top quality doesn’t come cheap, and you always have a right not to indulge. But you might regret it, since Vuitton has become a lifestyle and even an art: the art of travelling, the art of living, the art of spending money.So why not join the club Well, it takes a lot of cash… so meanwhile, while waiting for membership in the Vuitton Club, you can travel abroad in this big luxurious book.