News feed
Since founding his atelier in 1940, Piero Fornasetti has enchanted design lovers through his intricate hand-drawings. While today the Italian artist is best known for his collectable ceramic plates, luxury candles and diffusers, the late creative’s work has been honoured in a spectacular collaboration with Louis Vuitton.
As the French fashion house celebrates their founder’s 200th birthday this month, Nicolas Ghesquière’s Fall/Winter 2021 collection has received the Fornasetti treatment with Barnaba Fornasetti’s distinct visual universe splayed across LV archival pieces (plucked from the house’s 13,000-piece archive in Milan).
These garments and accessories use a rich combination of colours, textures and traditional, cutting-edge techniques including jacquard, embroidery and laser printing, intertwining Fornasetti’s exquisitely illustrated world with Ghesquière’s strikingly contemporary design.
Highlights include lush velvet dresses, shiny printed jersey tops upon which Fornasetti drawings of ancient statues are overlaid on high-tech thermal-camera imagery, as well as more casual fleece hooded jackets and tailoring pieces. Oversized outerwear pieces feature Fornasetti prints, both in a stamp inspired coloured version and, in a gold, coated version.
This Louis Vuitton x Fornasetti capsule collection also features a broader selection of Louis Vuitton products that draw on Fornasetti motifs – such as buildings, locks, keys and portraits. This includes a stunning iteration of the iconic Cannes bucket bag in transformed leather, embellished with a Fornasetti black-and-white architectural drawing and reminiscent of the Renaissance-era Baptistery in Florence. The Maison also draws from innovative craftsmanship as witnessed through a reworked Petite Malle cross body that seems to have been inflated and covered with a dome printed metallic leather, creating a striking optical illusion.
In all its facets, the Louis Vuitton x Fornasetti collaboration embodies the two Houses’ shared sense of experimental traditionalism: an effective blend of Louis Vuitton’s forward-looking creativity and craft and Fornasetti’s magical and visionary depiction of the world.
The collection is available in Louis Vuitton boutiques worldwide from August.
