BRIGHT FIGURES

Go wild for saturated colour this new season and turn heads with statement accessories and sculptural silhouettes

2021-09-01 -

Evoking a sense of time-travelling with its Greco-Roman aesthetics, the Louis Vuitton x Fornasetti Capsule Collection features highly recognisable Fornasetti motifs, such as buildings and portraits, on its clothes and accessories.

The more recent Capsule Collection falls under the Nicolas Ghesquière-led Louis Vuitton x Fornasetti Fall-Winter 2021 collection revealed earlier this year, which, as the collaboration title dictates, integrates the creative wealth of the Fornasetti atelier into Ghesquière’s contemporary design.

The Artistic Director of Women’s collections at Louis Vuitton has stated that he wanted to use the pieces to bring forth the “continuing modernity of Fornasetti’s artistic world.” As a designer who has always loved fashion’s ability to evoke the past, present and future simultaneously, Ghesquière wanted to add new layers to this creative palimpsest, doing so by exploring the 13,000-piece Fornasetti archive to find drawings from the past to give them a new life for Louis Vuitton.

Founded in 1940 by Piero Fornasetti, with his son Barnaba now serving as the brand’s artistic director, the atelier holds an expansive collection of Fornasetti’s iconic hand-drawn imagery that has long captivated art and design lovers.

It is this imagery that can be seen emblazoned on the pieces under the Capsule Collection. Such as the Cannes bag, its detailed look reminiscent of the Renaissance-era Baptistery in Florence with a Fornasetti blackand-white architectural drawing beautifully embellished on the bag’s transformed leather. Greco-Roman sculptures inspire yet other bags’ design, whereas other motifs such as the antique coins from the Fornasetti archives adorn the

Dauphine Cameo MM handbag.

Ready-to-wear, leathergoods, shoes and accessories in the Louis Vuitton x Fornasetti Fall-Winter collaboration feature similar Fornasetti themes and artworks. Shiny printed tops with Fornasetti drawings of ancient statues overlaid on high-tech thermal-camera imagery, velvet dresses, fleece hooded jackets and tailoring pieces are among the highlights of the collection. Fornasetti print, both in a stamp inspired coloured version and in a gold, coated version, also features on maximalist outerwear pieces.

“Our vision has always been to bring Fornasetti’s unique artistic imagination to people through beautifully crafted objects,” says Barnaba, who states that his father, much like Louis Vuitton, was an innovator who believed in the handmade, “and this rewarding collaboration represents a new opportunity to expand and explore its visual creativity.”