MODERNIST MAGIC
Louis Vuitton pays tribute to architect and designer Charlotte Perriand with the Icones collection for cruise 2014 and an upcoming exhibition at Design Miami. By Lauren Clarke Jensen
Louis Vuitton pays tribute to Charlotte Perriand with a modern collection
“Anew way of living awaited me there: Work, leisure, discover, representation,” said Charlotte Perriand upon her return from Japan in the ’40s. “I had made up my wardrobe with interchangeable ‘modules,’ as in my investigations of standardisation: four skirts, long or short, for the lower body and sweaters, blouses and bustiers for the top, all of which combined to give me at least 16 possibilities. By adding scarves, stoles, atypical jewels and gloves, I achieved wide variety with a great deal of surprise and fantasty—always similar but never the same.”
This vision was the starting point for Louis Vuittion’s cruise 2014 Icones collection dreamed up by Womenswear Creative Director Julie de Libran, a capsule collection of practical, functional essentials, able to stand alone or offer a thousand permutations. Each item is transformative, designed to adapt to the wearer’s needs and moods and is a timeless and practical classic for every occasion or any destination—a trench coat for the rainy season, a pair of shorts for a spontaneous holiday or a gown for evening. The collection plays with carefully balanced proportions and harmony, the foundation of Perriand’s work. Luxury elements like precious buttons and practical functions such as pockets inside a leather dress show sharp attention to detail, while versatility comes in the form of a pea coat with removable sleeves or a long shoulder strap on the perfect carry-all that by day serves as a tote and at night can be worn folded as a clutch. The collection takes on a graphic sensibility with vibrant colour all of which Louis Vuitton presented at the media launch of the collection in Hong Kong in a sparse townhouse complemented by Perriand’s backdrop of colour-blocked modular Nuage shelving system and Petalo tables.
Louis Vuitton has chosen Perriand as a muse before, the first time for pre-fall 2012 and again as one of six women chosen as icons, alongside Catherine Deneuve, Kate Moss, Sof ia Coppola, French Empress consort Eugénie de Montijo and novelist Françoise Sagan this September, for Louis Vuitton’s “Timeless Muse” exhibition that paid homage to individualistic women, pioneering or adventurous in spirit, who have inspired the house of Louis Vuitton in some way.
Perriand, was a free-spirit and one of the founders of what we know today as modernist design. She began her career in the studio of Pierre Jeanneret and Le Corbusier in the late ’20s, an appointment that did not come easily. She was overlooked at first upon the assumption that a woman would have no place in the atelier of such esteemed designers until they discovered her Bar sous le toit (bar in the garret)—a project where she converted a room in her Garretstyle apartment into a metal and glass bar, which was on-view at the Salon D’Automne, and presented a series of tubular metal furniture of chrome and aluminum. She was immediately placed in charge of the furniture and fittings programme where she created some of the most iconic modern furniture designs of our time, including co-designing the famous B306 chaise recliner lounge typically attributed only to Le Corbusier. Perriand in effortlessly chic style posed for publicity photographs in the B306, which is seen similarly referenced eight decades later by Louis Vuitton in its campaign visuals for the Icones collection.
After her marriage ended, Perriand moved to Montparnasse and travelled to Moscow and Athens, leading the modernist movement at conferences in Europea n c apit a l s. She continued with Le Corbusier, developing furniture for his architectural projects. By the mid ’30s she had begun working with wood and cane, well before it was even considered abuilding material, with the goal of trying to develop affordable, functional furniture for the masses. This is when she began a series of sketches of La Maison au Bord de L’Eau (House on Water). It was originally conceived for a design contest in 1934 to introduce this economical form of lodging. She continued to experiment with ideas, adapting it for the more aff luent, though she never had it produced. Louis Vuitton, inspired by her vision, which she referred to as a Synthese des arts (synthesis of the arts), will honour her spirit once again at Design Miami 2013 this December during Art Basel Miami Beach, by showcasing a tangible structure of the legendary La Maison de L’Eau, produced from her sketches and notes, at an exhibition inside The Raleigh Hotel.
Perriand’s love for travel also bridges the connection to Louis Vuitton. She went on to collaborate with Fernand Léger on a stand at the Paris Exhibition, and to work on a ski resort in Savoi after leaving Le Corbusier’s studio; she moved back to Paris to work on aluminum buildings with Pierre Jeanneret and Jean Prouvé until she was appointed to advise on industrial design in Japan where she became interested in bamboo as a medium and studied woodwork and weaving. She brought back this Eastern inf luence upon her return to Europe and began incorporating the functional elements of Japanese interiors, such as sliding screens, the use of natural materials, such as wood and bamboo, which appeared in her later projects such as a ski resort and The League of Nations Building in Geneva. She was the first woman to work as an architect, designer and planner. She was an empowering figure inspired by the concept of discovery. The modern movement evolved by trying new things, experimenting with different or unknown materials and respecting the laws of organic form, similarly, Louis Vuitton’s Icones collection, captures her spirit in a timeless collection with distinctive style.
Perriand’s love for travel also bridges the connection to Louis Vuitton.