Louis Vuitton City Bags A Natural History

This volume is an unprecedented history of Louis Vuitton’s women’s bags, the most coveted line of accessories in women’s fashion. At the heart of Louis Vuitton are its City Bags, a range of women’s bags that dates back to the turn of the twentieth century. Featuring the trademark monograms of the house, the City Bag story began with the Steamer, a resort bag designed in 1901 to be packed inside a much larger steamer trunk. These bags have in a hundred years formally diversified into a dizzying array of handbags for every conceivable function demanded by the modern woman. Profoundly influential, City Bags are now known to millions by their descriptive names (Keepall, Bucket, Papillon, Alma, Locket, Noe, Speedy) and are still evolving into more fantastical forms. Lavishly illustrated with new and archival photography, historical graphics, landmark editorials, and ad campaigns, the volume traces the history of these specific bag families, and examines the earliest specimens and today’s most sought-after collectibles, including Vuitton’s collaborations with Takashi Murakami, Stephen Sprouse, Richard Prince, Yayoi Kusama, and Rei Kawakubo and one-off projects by Zaha Hadid, Shigeru Ban, Vivienne Westwood, Helmut Lang, Andrée Putman, and of course, Marc Jacobs. Louis Vuitton: City Bags is an ambitious volume on the creation and cultivation of a cultural phenomenon.

An easy to read guide for all lovers of Louis Vuitton. I am very passionate about collecting Louis Vuitton and this book is the result of years of collecting. I have been a Louis Vuitton fan since I was 15 years old.This book covers the following topics:-LOUIS VUITTON – BOOKS, CATALOGUES AND LITERATURE.HOLY GRAIL PIECES. TELLING FAKES FROM GENUINE ITEMS. BUYING GENUINE LOUIS VUITTON FROM EBAY. BUYING NEW FROM THE LOUIS VUITTON STORE. LOUIS VUITTON IN THE WORKPLACE. LOUIS VUITTON AND SAVING THE ENVIRONMENT. CARING/CLEANING LOUIS VUITTON ITEMS

The first in depth portrait of one of the world's best known luxury brands, this elegant volume traces the remarkable history of the House of Vuitton, which has been making practical but stylish luggage, handbags and accessories for more than 150 years. Written with full access to the company's archives, the book itself demonstrates Louis Vuitton's passion for fine design with a stunning array of archival art, historical images, product designs and sketches, and cutting edge advertising. The book explores the company's tradition of quality and innovation in the context of sweeping changes in society, art, culture, fashion and, above all, travel. Examining the life and times of the company's first three leaders; founder Louis (who invented the modern trunk), his son Georges and his grandson Gaston, the text focuses on the firm's development under their guidance. It also discusses Vuitton's explosive growth toward the end of the 20th century, including the 1987 merger with Moet Hennessy that made it part of LVMH, the world's largest luxury goods company and spurred the expansion of its boutiques to more than 300 locations in 50 countries around the globe.

This monograph documents Louis Vuitton's highly visible collaborations with an elite group of artists, architects and photographers, including Takashi Murakami, Julie Verhoven and Anne Leibovitz.

Reaching beyond the intimate setting of the fashion show, the photographer paints a portrait of haute couture that takes the couturier’s intention to enchant the public and elevates it to the level of the sublime. The great names in photography, the mythical photos that have constructed Dior’s image, and the emblematic subjects of the house’s iconography—whether they are dreams of a faraway place or captured in the vast open-sky “studios” of Paris or Versailles—are all evoked in this vast panorama that takes us through more than sixty years in the history of fashion photography. Published to accompany the Dior and Fashion Photography exhibition presented at the Musée Christian Dior in Granville, France, this lavish volume presents a wealth of gorgeous photographs that bring the character of the couturier’s dresses to life, with each photographer interpreting them in his or her unique style. Legendary contributors include Horst P. Horst, Richard Avedon, Irving Penn, Cecil Beaton, Norman Parkinson, Henry Clarke, William Klein, Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, Sarah Moon, Paolo Roversi, Nick Knight, Ines Van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin, Tim Walker, Willy Vanderperre, Patrick Demarchelier, and many more. Stunning, glamorous, and iconic, Dior and Fashion Photography exemplifies how the haute couture house transcended fashion to enter the realm of legend.

An insider's hilarious, whirlwind account of his years spent globe-trotting in search of the holy grail of handbags: the Birkin For more than twenty years, the Hermès Birkin bag has been the iconic symbol of fashion, luxury, and wealth. Though the bag is often seen dangling from the arms of celebrities, there is a fabled waiting list of more than two years to buy one from Hermès, and the average fashionista has a better chance of climbing Mount Everest in Prada pumps than of possessing one of these coveted carryalls. Unless, of course, she happens to know Michael Tonello . . . Michael's newfound career started with an impulsive move to Barcelona, a vanished job assignment, no work visa, and an Hermès scarf sold on eBay to generate some quick cash. But soon the resourceful Michael discovered the truth about the waiting list and figured out the secret to getting Hermès to part with one of these precious bags. Millions of dollars worth of Birkins later, Michael had become one of eBay's most successful entrepreneurs—and a Robin Hood to thousands of desperate rich women. With down-to-earth wit, Michael chronicles the unusual ventures that took him to nearly every continent, from eBay to Paris auction house and into the lives of celebrities and poseurs. Flirting with danger, Michael recounts the heady rush of hand delivering his first big score to famed songwriter Carole Bayer Sager in Paris; how he had to hire thugs to rescue a bag that one of his "shoppers" held for ransom; and the story of the Oscar-worthy performances that allowed him to snag "reserved" bags from other, less dogged Birkin seekers. Whether he's relating his wining and dining, buying and selling, dodging and weaving, laughing and crying, or schmoozing and stammering, Michael is a master raconteur who weaves together tales of hunting Birkins in the world's most posh locales, memories of meals that would make any gastronome salivate, anecdotes of obsessed collectors with insatiable desires, and sweetly intimate stories about his family, friends, and finding true love. The result is a memoir that is distinctive, fun, page-turning, and as addictive as its namesake.

"Imagining Ground Zero: Official and Unofficial Proposals for the World Trade Center Site documents not only the master plan competition, won by Studio Daniel Libeskind and sponsored by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, but also proposals submitted by invitation of and published by New York magazine, proposals from the exhibition at Max Protetch Gallery, as well as a selection from the more than 5,000 schemes submitted to the competition for the World Trade Center Memorial. This survey features in depth the official scheme for the site, designed by David Childs of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill with the collaboration of Daniel Libeskind of Studio Daniel Libeskind; Reflecting Absence, the winning scheme for the memorial, designed by Michael Arad and Peter Walker; and, as well, the World Trade Center Transportation Hub, designed by Santiago Calatrava, DMJM + Harris, and STV Group."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Celebrating the work of such famed architects as Rem Koolhaaas, Gwathmey Siegel, Richard Rogers, Norman Foster, Frank Gehry, and Philippe Starck, a richly illustrated overview of New York City's finest architectural monuments of the past decade encompasses the Prada Store, the Planetarium and the Museum of Natural History, and the 42nd Street Redevelopment project. Simultaneous.