Frank Gehry is going to unveil a collection of handbags with Louis Vuitton at the Art Basel Miami Beach art fair. The 11 limited-edition designs will be displayed in a booth celebrating the longstanding collaboration between Gehry and the French fashion house, which has encompassed everything from his landmark building for the Fondation Louis Vuitton on the outskirts of Paris to perfume bottles with striking Murano glass. In order to apply his touch to a full range of Capucines bags in a variety of sizes, Gehry created a unique handbag design for the house. He said it was child's play compared to shepherding a construction project like the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao or the Walt Disney Concert Hall. The sketches-to-handbag is a couple of days here, compared to a few years ago when I did a collection for Tiffany & Co. He said that it was much faster to transfer the architectural language to the smaller scale. The paper models of the bags were made by Joyce Shin, who is Gehry's daughter-in-law. He admitted that there was a pile of stuff that looked stupid that he wouldn't show anyone but eventually, you start exploring and you get into it. It is infinitely quicker because you are very close to the scale and the formal language. You go down a lot of rabbit holes with a building because you have so many other aspects of public safety and budget control and engineering.
His signature touches are evident in the final designs, which are embellished with techniques ranging from cutting-edge 3D screenprinting to aquarelle hand-painting. He loves the original trunk-inspired Twisted Box bag, which was covered in a special LV x FG logo on the smooth leather exterior, in two different colors, black and silver. He said that the bag has stood the test of time. I can imagine a young lady wearing a business suit sitting at a table in front of her interviewer.
The Capucines BB Croc with a crocodile-shaped handle was one of the designs that allowed him to explore a more playful side. The designs are grouped into three styles: Architecture & Forms, Material Exploration and Animals. The IAC Building in New York City inspired the design of the CapucinesBBAnalog bag, made from lambskin and screenprinted with a picture of the building. On the CapucinesBB Shimmer Haze, the panels of see-through Plexiglas are held together with brass stamped rivets and a protective layer over the bag's exterior. The transparent model made for the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle was the inspiration for the concept. He said he uses the building as a foil to make the relationship between the orchestra and the audience happen. He added a sharp edge to the bottle when he created bottles for Vuitton. It is similar to making a building because of the sexy quality of having that edge. Vuitton is back in Miami for the second year in a row. A selection of the architect's works, including sketches, scale models and a trunk, can be found in the booth, which is inspired by the window displays for the house. When leading figures such as Ed Ruscha, Robert Rauschenberg and Ellsworth Kelly first burst onto the scene in the 1960s, Frank Gehry befriended them. He feels a kinship with the artists, as he can see how they are quick to complete. I think there is a magic in creativity and that the exploration is similar. The contemporary artists inspire him to create something that is new and challenging to the eye. He said that he could not do that and that he would have to work it through. He takes a picture of me and puts it in his pocket, but I don't know if he's in it. He knows everything. He said he relied on him a lot in the relationship because he was well educated and had seen everything.
At a ceremony in June where Arnault was honoured for his contribution to real estate, the two revealed they have another project in the works: a cognac museum, to be designed by Gehry, next to the Mot Hennessy cellars on the Charente river in France. Though Arnault gives him a lot of latitude, he was careful to keep the logo relatively intact. That is an important part of the world.
He is not immune to being a little irreverent with the most lucrative product category. The Capucines MM Floating Fish is a bright red fish with flamboyant leather and sequin scales, while the Bear With Us clutch is a miniature version of the sculpture of the same name, which looks like it was made out of crumpled paper. He admitted that he didn't expect to make that into a handbag. Delphine Arnault, the former executive vice president of Vuitton, has a gold version of the sculpture in her Paris home. The daughter of Bernard Arnault is now the CEO of Christian Dior. The bags from the new collection will be priced from 10,000 euros to 33,000 euros, and are sure to become collector's items. He answered with a laugh that as long as they let him, there is more to come.