Chanel’s Coco Mademoiselle Fragrance has a new ambassador — 20-year-old actor Whitney Peak [IG], who now follows in the footsteps of Kate Moss and Keira Knightly.
The Ugandian-Canadian actor has an existing relationship with Chanel. Peak had a major role in the 2021 HBO Max reboot of the Gossip Girl series, the Apple TV+ series Home Before Dark, the Netflix series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and the Disney+ film Hocus Pocus 2.
The Coco Mademoiselle fragrance and Whitney Peak are a perfect match. Whitney Peak isn’t a shy femme; rather she embraces her bold and carefree side, as expressed in her natural, 2023 Diana Ross hairdo.
South Korean ‘Squid Game’ actor and Louis Vuitton ambassador Hoyeon Jung plays with scale in the Spring 2023 campaign.
Jung just booked another very important beauty ambassador role with Lancôme.
The campaign is fast and young — more than usual. The playhouse structure is modeled after Louis Vuitton’s historic home in Asnieres, located on the left bank of the river Seine, some eight kilometres from the center of Paris.
Today the home is called ‘La Galerie’, and it functions as a permanent exhibition space for Louis Vuitton.
The rest of the cast includes Elio Berenett, Franzisla Jetzek, Greta Oberwalleney, Killian Smits, Sarah Brown and Samile Bermannelli.
Frequent LV photographer David Sims [IG] is behind the lens, with styling by Marie-Amelie Sauve.
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?
In an throwaway, one and done, age of mass production and reckless disposal, ‘kintsugi’ is not only focused on repairing our favorite chipped vessels.
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.
A fashion industry earthquake happened this week with the appointment of Pharrell Williams as Creative Director at Louis Vuitton Men’s, replacing his close friend Virgil Abloh who passsed in November 2021. The hip hop mogul, business entrepreneur, social activist with a high-volume voice on racial and gender-justice has drawn major criticism from fashion writers who argue that Pharrell’s lack of a formal design education indicates that all that matters to LVMH is his celebrity status.
I don’t mean to sound sassy, but knowing that Louis Vuitton doubled its volume from $10 billion to $20 billion in the last four years suggests that this executive team knows what it’s doing. I’m a maverick to the core and rarely silent on important topics.
But I do show respect to professionals who have just accomplished unimaginable results in business, results that defy logic. Before accusing them of being money-hungry Las Vegas strippers ready to trash the most valuable brand in the luxury world for a few bucks, I dig deeper.
I never praise myself, but I KNEW Pharrell was the perfect human for Louis Vuitton Mens and that LV would see it that way, too.
I’ve asked Louis Vuitton Mens [and Dior — too — both men and women] and Etro this morning to pick up the mantle that few businesses can lead. LVMH is well aware of what I am saying. And they are listening.
This video about Pharrell’s ‘Black Ambition’ organization is only about two years old. Clearly Virgil knew how ill he was, but we see here Virgil and Pharrell really speaking to issues of black success. The convo goes deep into their values as humans.
Felecia Hatcher is very succesful in her own right and she serves as CEO of ‘Black Ambition’.
Photographer Tyler Mitchell [IG] was over the moon, shooting “a gang of boys in the Spanish desert” near Almería, Spain. The minute I saw Mitchell’s name I understood how impacted he was by the shoot. To his credit, Tyler said as much: “I'm extremely thankful for the opportunity. Photography has brought me many places but this is my first main campaign for a heritage house of such stature. Those who know me know how much this means.”
In an excellent interview Mitchell has with FRIEZE, the photographer explains how his new work is being influenced by his growing understanding of historical paintings.
AOC understands the constant mention of boyhood games and imaginations in the evolving Louis Vuitton Menswear discussion, but to me it’s just as important that cool men are relating to amusing and creative elements in their clothes. Creativity is known to be a uniting force among diverse peoples.
Virgil Abloh understood that reality. Clearly Louis Vuitton understands it in their deeply personal embrace of Virgil’s talents — then and now. And Tyler Mitchell is a similarly soft-spoken, creative personality that fits beautifully into the Louis Vuitton hive.
I personally went back over Virgil’s older shows and the influence of the menswear design studio is strong in the Fall 2023 collection. This is not about radical change.
AOC remains a believer that Beccari and Arnault will take the menswear design group for an innovative spin — sort of a design laboratory that focuses on the future studio workplace.
But to hear in March that Colm Dillane gets his LV men’s position would not surprise us. AOC believes strongly that elegance is in the wind. I did keep asking myself “Would Jay-Z wear these clothes? Would the NBA players wear these clothes because the LV Men’s NBA clothes are fabulous.
We are positive that LVMH will make some kind of investment in Dillane. His whole story and his talent are pretty irresistable.
Rising South Sudanese model Adit Priscilla is styled by Rebecca Bleynie in Chanel jewelry and fragrance for Numero 235, end-of-year all Chanel editorial content issue. Supremely-gifted, Dutch photographer Bastiaan Woudt [IG] is in the studio.
Woudt began his own self-taught photography practice from scratch about five years ago. The exceptional talent also does his own post-production work, infusing a modern, graphic vision with classical DNA and elegance into his black and white images. He’s a WOW!
Top model and Chanel-exclusive Vivienne Rohner travels to New York City’s downtown for Chanel's latest Spring Summer 2023 Pre-Collection images, lensed by Theo Wenner [IG].
KidSuper founder Colm Dillane, Brooklyn’s homegrown superhero, will return to Paris Fashion Week, as the luxury fashion equivalent of an ‘artist as residence’ in the creation of the Louis Vuitton Autumn/Winter 2023 menswear collection.
Mr. Dillane, 31, is considered to be a great storyteller. In 2021, the prestigious LNMH Prize awarded him the runner-up Karl Lagerfeld prize with two other designers. Dillane thrives on collaboration, as did Abloh, and his commercial partners have run the gamut from Puma to SpaghettiOs.
For Holiday 2022.23 ‘Les Extraits Murano Masterpiece’ advances this transformation of fragrance into art with the visionary expertise of Glass Master Simone Cenedese.
This entire fragrance project is so intellectual, that we must backtrack to it origins in order to full appreciate it newest fragrance art offering.
In his own words, Belletrud explains the origins of ‘Les Extraits’ collection:
I wanted to venture where no one goes anymore. To reinvent the notion of an Extrait in a contemporary way. To bring it light, expand matter, and lighten things up. I wanted to deconstruct the very architecture of perfume
Vogue Netherlands gets the jump on fashion stories centered on the Louis Vuitton x Yayoi Kusama collaboration, a sequel to the 2012 first project between the two global juggernauts.
Critically-acclaimed artist Yayoi Kusama has been breaking new ground for more than six decades and is now 93 years old. Known for her use of dots in multiple artistic media, do not think for one minute that Kusama’s art is created as a fashion statement.
Our earth is only one polka dot among a million stars in the cosmos. Polka dots are a way to infinity. –Yayoi Kusama
Drop Dates
The initial drop will launch on New Year’s Day, January 1 exclusively in China and Japan, followed by the rest of the world on the 6th.
The second drop of the Louis Vuitton x Yayoi Kusama 2023 collab will only be available in Louis Vuitton stores from March 31, 2023.
Fashion world got a major wakeup this morning with a preview of the January 2023 Louis Vuitton x Yayoi Kusama campaign.
Yayoi Kusama, Age 93, Rolls Again with Louis Vuitton
LV makes a big move putting Gisele Bundchen front and center in a second, historical collaboration with revered Japanese creative Yayoi Kusama, one of the world’s pre-eminent artists at age 93.
“One of the aspects of her [Yayoi Kusama’s] work is happiness, and we thought it would be really refreshing after the pandemic to have the worlds of Vuitton and the world of Kusama meet again,” Arnault explained. The successful first collaboration between the two global giants happened in 2012.
