I use it mostly on the weekends or as an evening bag. I don't use it at work that much because I often have to carry too much.
Masters LV x Koons 2017 Collaboration
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Thanks. I use them all but I use the multicolour and DE one's a bit more just because they match with so much.
Love to read that you think multicolor matches with so much when you have monogram speedys as well
More color to the people!
A great read from haaretz.com.
Jeff Koons' and Louis Vuitton's Unstoppable Fashion Terrorism
By appropriating classic works by Van Gogh and Da Vinci, the U.S. pop artist has turned the luxury bag brand into the ultimate counterfeiter
Avshalom Halutz
In Woody Allen’s 2000 comedy “Small Time Crooks,” a British art dealer played by Hugh Grant tries to figure out the nouveau riche Frenchy (Tracey Ullman) by asking this loud, louche woman – who struck it rich in a shop that was supposed to be a cover for a bank robbery – what kind of artists she likes. “Rembrandt, Picasso, Michelangelo,” she responds. “You know, the boys.”
One wonders if this scene wasn’t echoing in the mind of American pop artist Jeff Koons when he imagined potential customers for the new line of bags he created for French fashion house Louis Vuitton. The “Masters” collection features very familiar paintings by Vincent Van Gogh and Leonardo da Vinci, as well as works by Rubens, Titian and Jean-Honoré Fragonard.
The reproductions of masterpieces like Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” and Rubens’ “The Tiger Hunt” on the bags are embellished by large, shiny metallic letters bearing the names of the artists – who overnight have become new, desirable brands in their own right.
The face of the Mona Lisa, repeated ad nauseam on bags of various sizes, has a hard time sneaking in her famous smile under the fashion house’s logo (and that of Koons himself) – one on her forehead, another on her chin, her eyes floating above the giant “DA VINCI” adorning her cheeks, like a headline on a magazine turning her into just another model.
The final product is so over-the-top, it exposes in all its detail the mechanism that underlies our obsessive consumption of luxury goods. The use of works of art that have already become cliched images, like Van Gogh’s “Wheat Field With Cypresses,” seems mostly like a joke at the expense of consumers willing to shell out thousands of dollars for a hollow status symbol. (A Van Gogh “Keepall 50” bag is yours for only $4,000.)
The manipulation that Koons has created, together with a fashion house that is synonymous with extreme capitalism and conspicuous consumption – and which has long been associated with the worldwide trade in knockoffs – chimes with the spirit of the times: of the elites who protest about fake news, while they themselves labor over the creation of alternative facts; of entire industries built on copying and replication instead of creating something new; the blurring of hierarchies and a reality that is disappearing in the face of the virtual, the airbrushed and the ersatz.
Koons went a step beyond postcards, cloth bags and umbrellas festooned with art prints – the usual preserve of museum gift shops worldwide. Using the ultimate consumer product, a Louis Vuitton bag, he has created “ultra-merchandise,” sold in a souvenir store bereft of memories. The museum and the visit to it have become superfluous.
But Koons also offers a double form of redemption: for the fashion house, which instead of continuously fighting off the tireless swarm of Eastern counterfeiters who flood the market with cheap, monogram-covered copies, can now declare itself the greatest counterfeiter of them all; and also, by appropriating the “Mona Lisa” and using her as raw material for his product, Koons permits the painting to be reborn. It is no longer a simulation or an idea, but, at last, a tangible product, existing in a reality in which nothing is more important than the luxury bag hanging from one’s arm.
Jeff Koons' and Louis Vuitton's Unstoppable Fashion Terrorism
By appropriating classic works by Van Gogh and Da Vinci, the U.S. pop artist has turned the luxury bag brand into the ultimate counterfeiter
Avshalom Halutz
In Woody Allen’s 2000 comedy “Small Time Crooks,” a British art dealer played by Hugh Grant tries to figure out the nouveau riche Frenchy (Tracey Ullman) by asking this loud, louche woman – who struck it rich in a shop that was supposed to be a cover for a bank robbery – what kind of artists she likes. “Rembrandt, Picasso, Michelangelo,” she responds. “You know, the boys.”
One wonders if this scene wasn’t echoing in the mind of American pop artist Jeff Koons when he imagined potential customers for the new line of bags he created for French fashion house Louis Vuitton. The “Masters” collection features very familiar paintings by Vincent Van Gogh and Leonardo da Vinci, as well as works by Rubens, Titian and Jean-Honoré Fragonard.
The reproductions of masterpieces like Da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa” and Rubens’ “The Tiger Hunt” on the bags are embellished by large, shiny metallic letters bearing the names of the artists – who overnight have become new, desirable brands in their own right.
The face of the Mona Lisa, repeated ad nauseam on bags of various sizes, has a hard time sneaking in her famous smile under the fashion house’s logo (and that of Koons himself) – one on her forehead, another on her chin, her eyes floating above the giant “DA VINCI” adorning her cheeks, like a headline on a magazine turning her into just another model.
The final product is so over-the-top, it exposes in all its detail the mechanism that underlies our obsessive consumption of luxury goods. The use of works of art that have already become cliched images, like Van Gogh’s “Wheat Field With Cypresses,” seems mostly like a joke at the expense of consumers willing to shell out thousands of dollars for a hollow status symbol. (A Van Gogh “Keepall 50” bag is yours for only $4,000.)
The manipulation that Koons has created, together with a fashion house that is synonymous with extreme capitalism and conspicuous consumption – and which has long been associated with the worldwide trade in knockoffs – chimes with the spirit of the times: of the elites who protest about fake news, while they themselves labor over the creation of alternative facts; of entire industries built on copying and replication instead of creating something new; the blurring of hierarchies and a reality that is disappearing in the face of the virtual, the airbrushed and the ersatz.
Koons went a step beyond postcards, cloth bags and umbrellas festooned with art prints – the usual preserve of museum gift shops worldwide. Using the ultimate consumer product, a Louis Vuitton bag, he has created “ultra-merchandise,” sold in a souvenir store bereft of memories. The museum and the visit to it have become superfluous.
But Koons also offers a double form of redemption: for the fashion house, which instead of continuously fighting off the tireless swarm of Eastern counterfeiters who flood the market with cheap, monogram-covered copies, can now declare itself the greatest counterfeiter of them all; and also, by appropriating the “Mona Lisa” and using her as raw material for his product, Koons permits the painting to be reborn. It is no longer a simulation or an idea, but, at last, a tangible product, existing in a reality in which nothing is more important than the luxury bag hanging from one’s arm.
Thank you for sharing that article, @fabuleux! I found this comment sad but insightful: "Using the ultimate consumer product, a Louis Vuitton bag, he has created 'ultra-merchandise,' sold in a souvenir store bereft of memories. The museum and the visit to it have become superfluous." And here I was hoping this collab inspires museum visits! 
Well it's just one person's point of view!Thank you for sharing that article, @fabuleux! I found this comment sad but insightful: "Using the ultimate consumer product, a Louis Vuitton bag, he has created 'ultra-merchandise,' sold in a souvenir store bereft of memories. The museum and the visit to it have become superfluous." And here I was hoping this collab inspires museum visits!
But I found the article fun to read and insightful overall.
I think the writer gets the idea quite right. I would just interprete it differently. I guess (of course I don't really know what Koons think), the collection really has some kind of sociopolitical statement (isn't it this, what most artists want? Having some kind of a sociopolitical voice?), which makes it so debatable depending on the understanding of the individual and that it is not for mere beauty as many people might expect from an artists collaboration.
I enquired--was told 4 or 5 May.
Seems collection pieces are shipping out to stores.
Arrival varies a few days, here & there.
As usual.
You guys are lucky. When I spoke to LV client services in the U.K. (Where I'm based) I was told the collection was launching on the 28th of march but it would be between another 4-6 weeks before the neverfull's would ship after that.... but I talked myself out of that one and pre-ordered a Van Gogh clutch instead.I enquired--was told 4 or 5 May.
Seems collection pieces are shipping out to stores.
Arrival varies a few days, here & there.
As usual.
Did they say how many pieces there would be of each item? I've just been to have a look and i'm tempted...
They didn't say that but they did say that they don't expect big numbers of items to be available for those who haven't pre-ordered. And the downside is that they expect payment in full to pt]re-order. They did however say that they were surprised that the interest in the Rubens items hasn't been as good as expected and the Van Gogh is by far the most popular.
Hmmm, same here, when I talked with customer services in Sweden, they said products are available on 28th April. They expected Da Vinci becomes most popular but V.G being sold better. I like Rubben but unfortunately they don't have speedy. Anyhow, you can get money back if you don't like the one you receive.