“Painting on leather is very liberating”. So says American artist Donna Huanca. In other words, she is one of the six designers invited by Louis Vuitton to participate in the third edition of the Artycapucines project, giving her the opportunity to freely interpret the Capucines bag. In addition to Huanca, the group includes Vik Muniz, Zeng Fanzhi, Gregor Hildebrandt, Huang Yuxing and Paola Pivi. Each bag will be in a limited edition of 200, and will go on sale at the end of October at a price of 6,700 euros.
Artycapucines 3.0
“We have many customers who are looking for uniqueness, something they can’t find anywhere else,” Delphine Arnault, Louis Vuitton’s executive vice president, tells WWD. “The first two chapters of this collection were incredibly successful and sold out instantly. Through pre-orders, some bags were completely sold out even before the official in-store launch. These pieces are truly collectors’ items”.
The freedom to paint on leather
Paola Pivi took her inspiration from an old performance (a live leopard in contact with 3,000 fake cappuccino cups), the cups made in white patent leather and then inserted them on the bag using the inlay technique. Soft lamb leather depict the foam. Brazilian artist Vik Muniz chose to recycle heritage leathers from Vuitton workshops. German Gregor Hildebrandt, who uses vinyl records and magnetic tape as key materials, reproduced them in silkscreened leather, while Huang Yuxing and Donna Huanca adopted pictorial approaches with the brand’s craftsmen who “3D printed the swirling colours on white leather”. Then, they employed 3 different embroidery techniques by hand-painting on some of them to get as close as possible to the original canvases.
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