Curtains up on LV’s Christmas window display

’Tis the season for dressing up and Louis Vuitton has dressed up its Christmas window displays and store facades in joyous, spirited shades of fluorescent orange, pink and green as well as a number of variations based on these hues. Departing from traditional Christmas decor, stage designer Robert Wilson works around the theme of the newly redesigned LV symbol.

Louis Vuitton stores all over the world will carry the same vision and extravaganza, which is the result of an encounter between the luggage creator and an artist of unpredictable talents.

A man of the stage and a visionary master of ceremonies, Bob Wilson knows how to turn a window display into a show and how to inspire fantasies. Like a theater stage, he uses space as if it were a fourth invisible wall beyond which the road to discovery and wonder begins.

Using color compositions, his design is based on the idea of constant movement between the back and front of the display, so that for the immense LV that zigzags around the outside of the window and facade of the store, two different colors are used for the background and foreground. The three variations include an orange background with the LV symbol in pink, a pink background with an orange LV symbol, and a green background again using orange for the LV symbol.

Wilson applies his precise touch and personal style to the upstrokes and downstrokes of the LV emblem and has fun jiggling with the forms to bring the emblem to life like fireworks. On certain flagship stores, the point of the V extends beyond the bottom of the window and darts down the length of the wall towards the ground. The angle of the L noses up obliquely and the lines of the two letters shoot up like rockets. Elegant, energetic, a spirited graphical score that seems to have been traced from memory.

The magical atmosphere of the window displays is then transported inside the stores where the same concept of lines and fluorescent colors touch its light to the House’s collections.

Louis Vuitton has pushed the talents of Bob Wilson further by commissioning him to design a signature collection of bags. Available for a limited period, the new collection is called Monogram Vernis Fluo. The collection is based on the four best-selling designs of the Monogram Vernis line, and all sport the same dazzling, hard-edge look as the window displays.

In patent calf’s leather, with the LV emblem designed by Wilson featured in topstitch and an ensign inside signed "Robert Wilson," the bags are available in three colors – pink or green with an orange logo and orange with a pink logo.

The bags are jewels of urban modernity, all named after roads in New York. The Houston and Reade mid-sized bags are ideal for shopping sprees. The small Reade model and the Lexington wallet bag are smaller formats which can be held in the hand or under the arm for daytime or evening outings.

Finally, the Monogram Vernis Fluo collection is enhanced with a number of accessories that also feature the fluorescent patent monogram look, a bandana and a wish bracelet.

With these stunning accomplishments, Bob Wilson joins the roster of renowned artists who have worked with Louis Vuitton over the years. This includes Sol Le Witt, who designed scarves for the fashion brand; Olivier Debre, who painted the stage curtain for the Hong Kong opera given by Louis Vuitton as a gift to the city; and New York underground artist Stephen Sprouse, who put his graffitist talents on the Louis Vuitton Monogram canvas for the graffiti collection.

In the Philippines, Louis Vuitton is located at the ground floor level of 6750 Ayala Avenue, Makati City. For more information on Louis Vuitton, visit the website www.vuitton.com.