Louis Vuitton is one of the world’s leading international fashion houses. The brand has a unique label monogram and it appears on most of its products so they are easy to identified all over the world. But not many people ask who the founder is or what is his history.
There’s a story to tell about Louis Vuitton’s life, the man who found the house that from 2006 to 2012 was considered the most valuable luxury brand of the world. Here’s a piece of Louis Vuitton history:
Early life
The designer and entrepreneur was born on August 4, 1821, in Achay, a small village in eastern France’s mountainous. Vuitton’s father, Xavier, was a farmer and his mother, Coronne, was a milliner. When he was ten years old he lost his mother and his father soon remarried with a severe woman. Three years later the designer left home alone and went to Paris on foot. The journey took him two years and he had to took odd jobs to survive himself along the way. Then in 1837 he arrived to a capital city in the thick of an industrial revolution.
How Vuitton started?
He worked as an apprentice in the workshop of a successful box-maker named Monsieur Maréchal. At that time, box-making was a highly well seen and respectable urban craft and Vuitton quickly became a valued craftsman at the Parisian atelier. He did design boxes and then trunks according to clients’ desire. So he stayed seventeen years there before opening his own workshop at 4 Rue Neuve-des-Capucines near the Place Vendome.
Fact: Napoleon III’s wife, the Empress of France, Eugenie de Montijo, hired Vuitton as her personal box-maker and packer. And also she provided to the designer the entrance to a class of elite and royal clientele.
The Asnieres: The Heart of Louis Vuitton
Five years after founding his house, Louis Vuitton began to outgrow his sells so he had to relocated the new workshop to Asnières, a village from the northwest of Paris. The new atelier had an Eiffel style with a mix of glass and steel. This place is special to the Vuitton family because all sons learned the art of trunk-making there. Even today the house create key pieces at Asnières: from rigid trunks to designs in rare or exotic leathers and special orders.
Nowadays you can book a visit at La Galerie d’ Asnières and discover more of Louis Vuitton’s universe in an exhibition curated in a playful and timeless space.
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