Louis Vuitton and Kusama: Spot The Difference

  Marc Jacobs met in Tokyo, Yayoi Kusama in 2006 during the filming of a documentary Loïc Prigent the Marc Jacobs of Louis Vuitton.

"We talked a lot of work and passion to work ... It was just a very warm and beautiful woman," said Jacobs. The admiration was mutual, obviously: "She had great pleasure in one hand Vuitton Speedy had painted during this visit," says the designer.

And so began the latest in a long series of collaborations between Louis Vuitton and art world luminaries. The company has been with Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince and his friend Jacobs, Stephen Sprouse, a part of the fruits that have worked have become bestsellers. Damien Hirst was responsible for a pharmacy degree for the brand, Grayson Perry and Tracy Emin have both been commissioner of the library at its flagship store in London. Louis Vuitton Art Talk program, meanwhile, saw Vanessa Beecroft, Marc Quinn, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Antony Gormley, among other things, talking to a select group of guests. The company sponsors art shows all over the world, most recently a traveling retrospective of works by Yayoi Kusama. The exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Tate Modern opens at the Whitney Museum in New York later this month.

"The artists I chose to work in the past, all people whose work meant something to me personally," said Jacobs.

Kusama world, above all, is a pre-occupied by points: is his own life, "one issue among millions lost from other points," she once said so it is not surprising, know that summer dresses in silk, swimsuits, pajamas and were with covered them. On sale later this month, she will follow at the end of August, through a broader range of goods such as Monogram Murakami colorful drawings should be in the permanent collection of Louis Vuitton.

Said, "The Monogram canvas is so obsessed with how Yayoi points," Louis Vuitton CEO Yves Carcelle Women's Wear Daily, as broke the news of this aspect of the first cooperation. The initials "BT" interspersed with stylized flowers first appeared on the stems as far back as 1896, and is now almost as recognizable as Coca-Cola. These projects "tend to be a commercial success Vuitton because of the strength of the artist and the power," says Carcelle. The fact that the luxury goods company, the cash cow in the conglomerate LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy), is known. This is not the driving force behind these projects, however. "He has not put products on the shelves." Instead, improve the symbiotic relationship between art and fashion brand's image. When the fashion designer is exclusive, then the visual arts is even more, after all.

Scarlet Hair Kusama, who is now 83, began painting as a teenager at the beginning of his native Japan, assumed an expression means to reduce childhood trauma. Only in the 1950s and 1960s, after moving to New York that his career really took off, his work alongside Andy Warhol and George Segal are shown. And nets of the infinite, endless fields of spots and sculpture phallic covered prominences with spongy, as one of the protagonists to use at the beginning of performance art, or his own expression, "happenings," Kusama invited groups of friends and supporters, and indeed the audience is interested in each other's naked body with more points in his studio or, weather permitting, to paint outdoors. A pure PVC Mac spotty collection in question is a clear indication of this practice. Kusama has also participated, naked or clothed with his own drawings, with strategically placed cutouts to expose the erogenous zones. Vuitton has still not returned to them.

For Kusama, who has lived since 1977 in a psychiatric hospital by choice and now called himself "an artist of the environment", which extends the experience and its reach is much more attractive. "I expect I that, as with our other collaborations, the work still Kusama is another audience," says Jacobs. "It is wonderful how contemporary art permeates the environment."

And for those who are the prize find prohibitive Louis Vuitton - but universal product, it's just art, or even handbags for all - the company also has an iPad application, the house and allows homeowners to take to start pictures and match them with the time-honored reasons Kusama.

Louis Vuitton Yayoi Kusama is available worldwide as of 10 July. On 24 August, a Louis Vuitton pop-up store opens in Selfridges, with displays of Yayoi Kusama.