Louis Vuitton is reviving its collaboration with a Japanese icon

Louis Vuitton’s collaboration with artist Takashi Murakami irrevocably altered fashion and defined a decade. Now, more than 20 years on, the house is reviving the range for a new generation of collectors.

Nano Speedy Bag. Picture: Ellie Coker. Art direction by Arquette Cooke. Styled by Isabella Mamas.

Although it’s hard to imagine otherwise, there was once a time when Louis Vuitton wasn’t the global fashion behemoth we know today. From the 1850s until the final years of the 20th century, the house was known primarily for its luggage and canvas travel bags, covered with a recognisable monogram and revered by an elite few. That was until Marc Jacobs, a 34-year-old design prodigy from New York, became creative director in 1997 and infused the house with a reverence for global art and innovation.

Naomi Campbell in the original campaign in 2003. Picture: Getty Images

A model carries a Takashi Murakami bag on Louis Vuitton’s spring/summer ’03 runway. Image credit: GoRunway.com

It was Jacobs who made Vuitton a canvas for collaboration – a novel concept at the time, but now readily embraced by the label’s lineage of creative directors from Kim Jones to Virgil Abloh, Pharrell Williams to Nicolas Ghesquière, and seen across fashion at large. Into the fold, Jacobs invited revered artists like Richard Prince, Stephen Sprouse and Yayoi Kusama, who reinvented Vuitton’s accessory icons. Each was a roaring success, but few struck a cultural note like the creations touched by Takashi Murakami, the Japanese artist known for his kaleidoscopic and cartoonish approach, who was enlisted to design a capsule range of bags in 2002. The opening model on Vuitton’s spring/summer ’03 runway carried a Murakami bag that would eventually shape the moment in fashion: a miniature white iteration of Vuitton’s spacious Speedy, with the ingenious touch of refashioning the monogram in the colours of the rainbow.

Nano Speedy Bag. Picture: Ellie Coker. Art direction by Arquette Cooke. Styled by Isabella Mamas.

Petite Malle Bag. Picture: Ellie Coker.

Such a radical evolution of Vuitton’s insignia, historically seen in an understated caramel hue against a chestnut backdrop, saw the collection associated with the bold expression of Y2K style. It became one of the defining fashion releases of the 2000s, and you would have been hard pressed to find an It girl who didn’t own a piece of Murakami’s Vuitton. Two decades on, the pieces are coveted, and those lucky enough to still own theirs are rarely open to part with them.

That’s why Louis Vuitton, a house with an unprecedented ability to read the moment, saw this year as high time to revisit one of its most crucial partnerships. This month, the brand is releasing a re-edition collection with Murakami, revisiting the original range in different chapters across three releases in 2025. This time around, Murakami’s artworks will be available on Vuitton’s contemporary creations, like the Petite Malle, a clutch-sized version of the house’s miniature briefcases released by current creative director Nicolas Ghesquière in 2014. It’s now redesigned with the artist’s famous smiling flowers – an instantly recognisable piece of art history immortalised on Vuitton’s equally enduring scaled-down trunk. True to the original release, Murakami’s art will also be available on a host of Vuitton’s storied and collector-adored silhouettes, from the structured arch-shaped Alma BB to the spacious OnTheGo. Naturally, the Speedy 25, the bag that kicked off the Murakami craze that’s still keenly felt two decades on, will also be involved. As Vuitton proves, often the best designs – and in this case, the most vivid memories – just get better with time.

This story is from the January issue of Vogue Australia, on sale now.