Louis Vuitton and Yayoi Kusama have revived their iconic fashion collaboration for a new generation — complete with a campaign fronted by none other than Gisele Bündchen.
The supermodel posed for Steven Meisel’s lens in the Carine Roitfeld-styled campaign, instantly reminiscent of the collaborators’ work together in the early 2000s. To be released in 2023, the collection features Vuitton’s brown leather monogrammed handbags printed with Kusama’s colorful allover signature polka dots in hues of red, yellow, white, green and blue. As seen on Instagram, Bündchen’s imagery features her timelessly cast in a pair of stitched jeans, shot in black-and-white and overlaid with an oversized print of the collection’s polka dots.
The campaign, which also stars Anok Yai and Fei Fei Sun, includes two takes on Vuitton’s signature top-handled Capucines handbag, as well. One black leather style is cast in the collection’s multicolored polka dots, while the second — shiny silver metallic leather — is covered in rounded silver studs. Though it’s unclear how large the line will be, the captions of images released on Vuitton’s Instagram hint that the “second chapter” collection will be released in full in January 2023.
Louis Vuitton and Yayoi Kusama’s collaborative partnership is a famed one in the fashion world, originally debuting in 2012 under the creative direction of Marc Jacobs. Jacobs’ Kusama collection brought the surrealist Japanese artist’s artwork to a range of the French brand’s handbags, including the Neverfull, Papillon, Speedy and Keepall — and fueled the ongoing fashion-artist partnerships that have expanded into the 2010s and 2020s.
The 2023 Vuitton-Kusama collaboration, first seen in the brand’s cruise 2023 collection by Nicolas Ghesquiere, is notably debuting 10 years after its first, marking the partnership as a full-circle moment for each. Whether it signals an expanded collaboration — or even a “third chapter” — remains to be seen.
PHOTOS: Discover Louis Vuitton’s Spring 2023 collection in the gallery.
