Louis Vuitton SS2023 Capucine Campaign Teaches Us Kintsugi with Lea Seydoux AOC Fashion

Louis Vuitton’s Capucine bag heads into its second decade, showcased for Spring/Summer 2023 by maison ambassador Lea Seydoux.

In this moment of so many challenges central to our lives, the Spring 2023 Capucine bag with a handle made using the ancient Japanese Kintsugi technique may be the most special.

Seriously, can the handle of a Louis Vuitton Capucine bag teach us a life lesson?

Kintsugi Repair

The original process of kintsugi repair and gilded restoration can take as long as three months. Broken shards or chips of ceramics or pottery are meticulously glued together with the sap of an indigenous Japanese 'urushi' tree. Note that the sap can cause allergies when touched.

After being blended with additional elements including wheat flour and fine sawdust, the repaired object is left to dry for a few weeks before being adorned with gold running along its cracks.

Kintsugi Life Philosophy

In an throwaway, one and done, age of mass production and reckless disposal, learning to accept failure and celebrate scars is a powerful lesson in humanity and sustainability.

Now we learn that ‘kintsugi’ is also a way of crafting — even mending — our lives. It’s very Zen and challenges humans to consider the contemplation of imperfection, as well as the constant flux and impermanence of all things.

‘Kintsugi’ is linked to ‘wabi-sabi’, which is both an appreciation of natural objects and the reality that nothing stays the same forever. This is the nature of our shared humanity.