Louis Vuitton Opens La Valise, Bruno Aveillan's 13-Year Alzer Suitcase Diary, at LV Dream

Louis Vuitton opened an exhibition on Friday, November 13 at LV Dream, its space at 26 Quai de la Mégisserie in the first arrondissement of Paris: La Valise Bruno Aveillan, built from the photographer's pictures of a single Louis Vuitton Alzer suitcase, his own, taken over more than thirteen years in more than a hundred destinations. Louis Vuitton announced it in a release on October 20 and posted the opening on November 12; entry is free, with a reservation, from Wednesday to Sunday, 11am to 8pm. No closing date has been given.

The release says the Alzer sometimes holds the centre of Aveillan's frame and is sometimes only implied, and that the show is arranged in seven themes, which Louis Vuitton Japan lists as crossing, refuge, presence, horizon, wilderness, city and silence. Aveillan calls the series an indirect self-portrait, in the release: the suitcase goes everywhere with him, and over time the pictures stopped being a collection of images and became a kind of travel diary, with no dates, no chronology and no plot. He also says a suitcase invites projection: the elegance of another era, the melancholy of railway stations, the sensuality of hotels, memories of the journey, and the hush of a bedroom before sleep.

Louis Vuitton

The suitcase itself is the point of the show as much as the photographs. Louis Vuitton's post describes the Alzer as Monogram canvas shaped into an icon in the late 1950s, built for the long road, with every corner, rivet and seam placed by hand; the Japanese release traces it to the porte-habits the house developed from the 1890s and dates its arrival to the 1960s. The release describes a rectangular silhouette, a large capacity, a sturdy structure and a practical size.

Louis Vuitton

A book came first. The Suitcase, published by Flammarion and Noir on November 11, is a hardcover of 402 pages and 350 photographs, 255 by 305 millimetres, in separate French and English editions, sold in Louis Vuitton stores and bookshops worldwide. The only price in the release is Japan's, ¥12,100 including tax. The exhibition walks through the Alzer's story, from its origins and the craft behind it to its role as a travelling companion, through Aveillan's lens.

Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton timed both to Paris Photo, the art fair, and calls them the finale of a year marking 130 years of the Monogram canvas. Its photographs of the installation show a dark gallery with the prints hung in grids, a projection room with a quote from Aveillan on the wall, archive trunks and an old advertisement for the canvas.

Our read

This is a luggage house using one customer's suitcase as the exhibit, which is a sharper idea than another display of trunks: the object with thirteen years of scuffs is the argument for buying a new one. It is also the second Louis Vuitton story on our pages in a week built on culture rather than clothes, after the Cruise 2027 campaign at the Frick, and it opened the day after RIMOWA, Louis Vuitton's sister brand inside LVMH, announced a Maison Margiela set designed to show its wear. What Louis Vuitton hasn't said: when the show closes, whether it travels, and what the book costs outside Japan.