Inside The Eclectic Alliance of Louis Vuitton and Milanese Design Atelier Fornasetti

What happens when one of fashion’s most forward-thinking designers, known for his personal predilection for futurism, meets an iconic design atelier renowned for its reverence to the past? A collaboration for the ages…

Revealed in Paris earlier this year on a catwalk that navigated between the Michaelangelo and Daru galleries at the Louvre, the heritage house of Louis Vuitton has formed an eclectic alliance with Fornasetti, the Milanese design atelier responsible for an instantly recognisable collection of plates and candles featuring opera singer Lina Cavalieri, along with many other iconic designs based on Greco-Roman architecture.

Louis Vuitton’s Creative Director, Nicolas Ghesquière, often muses on travel through his designs, but in a year when physical exploration has remained challenging, where better to journey than the past? Likewise, the Fornasetti design atelier, which was founded by Piero Fornasetti in 1940, has a long history of being inspired by antiquity. Fornasetti has developed a distinct visual language of whimsical hand-drawn imagery which has enchanted the interior and art worlds for decades. Now that vision has been translated into multiple creations for fashion fans, through the Vuitton collaboration.

To create the collection, Nicolas delved into an epic archive of over 13,000 pieces to choose the themes and artworks that would grace his designs for the maison. The resulting collection – a mix of ready-to-wear and accessories – are rich in colour and texture and all feature a mix of traditional craftsmanship, a signature of Louis Vuitton’s leather luggage house heritage, combined with cutting-edge techniques.

Jacquard fabrics and embroidery are combined with laser printing to intertwine Fornasetti’s illustrated world with Nicolas’ contemporary vision. Velvet dresses and printed jersey tops feature Fornasetti sketches of ancient statues overlaid with high-tech thermal camera imagery while outerwear focuses on statement silhouettes bedecked with Fornasetti prints.

 “With this collaboration, I wanted to use the pieces to evoke the continuing modernity of Fornasetti’s artistic world,” says Nicolas. “Fornasetti’s enduring body of work is the realisation of a remarkable hand-drawn technique. I am particularly drawn to the way Fornasetti re-explored and reworked the heritage of classicism and ancient Rome, adding new references to historical imagery. As a designer who has always loved fashion’s ability to evoke the past, present and future simultaneously, I wanted to add new layers to this creative palimpsest. Exploring the Fornasetti archives had the excitement of an archaeological dig, searching for and finding drawings from the past to give them a new life for Louis Vuitton – for now and for the future,” he continues.

Barnanba Fornasetti agrees in the dialogue’s success. “My father was an innovator who believed in the handmade, just like Louis Vuitton. Our vision has always been to bring Fornasetti’s unique artistic imagination to people through beautifully crafted objects and this rewarding collaboration represents a new opportunity to expand and explore its visual creativity.”

The catwalk pieces were just a peek at the upcoming collections as a Fornasetti capsule followed, all featuring the etched and sketched signature motifs of buildings, locks, keys and portraits. We are particularly excited about the Cannes bag, which has been transformed with a monochrome architectural drawing, and the Petite Malle bag, reworked in dome-printed metallic leather to create a double-take optical illusion.

Perhaps you could call this new coalition a celebration of experimental traditionalism, where forward-looking creativity merges with a truly magical view of the past. In design, as with all disciplines, if you stand still you die, yet Louis Vuitton and Fornasetti both continue to strive towards a bold and ever-relevant future. 

For more information, visit louisvuitton.com

Creative Direction & Photography by Dané Stojanovic. Styling by Anna Castan.

From Harper’s Bazaar Arabia’s October 2021 issue