时尚界很少有职位能像Louis Vuitton的创意总监那样具有如此大的文化影响力。Marc Jacobs、Nicolas Ghesquière、Kim Jones、Virgil Abloh。只有最知名、最具革命性的设计师才有幸在法国时装屋内引领艺术方向。在今年早些时候被任命Louis Vuitton男装系列的创意总监之后，美国制作人兼艺术家法瑞尔-威廉姆斯（Pharell Williams）又加入了一个独一无二的俱乐部，他要填补的是一双大鞋。
马克-雅各布斯于 1997 年加入Louis Vuitton ，成为该品牌的第一位创意总监，并率先将业务拓展到男女成衣时装领域--这与该时装品牌专注于箱包和旅行用品的传统大相径庭。值得注意的是，他并没有放弃Louis Vuitton 擅长的Monogram帆布。具体来说，在雅各布斯时代（97-2014 年）的所有Entrupy Verified 商品中，56% 都是由 Monogram 帆布制成的。Louis Vuitton 创意总监并不需要放弃传统的方方面面才能取得成功。
Instead, Jacobs set Louis Vuitton apart by embracing the multi-faceted nature of creative expression and developing relationships between the brand and artists, designers, and pop culture icons. A new generation of bags & leather goods shoppers was drawn to Louis Vuitton, attracted by Jacob’s innovative perspective. His impact was not solely cultural. Jacobs also quadrupled Louis Vuitton’s profits.
雅各布斯在Louis Vuitton 任职期间，一直保留着对Louis Vuitton女装的最终艺术控制权，而保罗-赫伯斯（Paul Helbers，2006-2011 年）和金-琼斯（Kim Jones，2011-2013 年）则负责Louis Vuitton的男装，向雅各布斯汇报工作，直到他离开品牌。2013年，随着雅各布斯离开路易威登专注于自己的时装品牌，琼斯获得了路易威登男装系列的艺术所有权。在女装方面，雅各布斯的位置被彻底改变了Balenciaga ）的法国-比利时设计师尼古拉斯-盖斯奇埃尔（Nicolas Ghesquière）取代。与之前的雅各布斯一样，Ghesquière 深谙时尚与流行文化之间相互交织的关系。Ghesquière 跳出了传统的西方参照，认识到了亚洲市场的美丽和意义。Ghesquière 从动漫美学中汲取灵感，向日本传统轮廓致敬，为品牌注入了全新的独特灵感。
In menswear, Jones was also an admirer of Japanese culture – specifically the intersection between street-wear and high-fashion materials that had defined the country’s ready-to-wear industry for decades. With that aesthetic in mind, Jones endeavored to make Louis Vuitton’s clothes street-ready and cool. Collaborating with established streetwear labels such as Fragment Design and Supreme, Louis Vuitton expanded their core demographic base to include shoppers from 16-year-olds to over-60-year-olds. Representative of the boundary-pushing, the number of authentications with non-traditional fabrics (classified by Entrupy as “other”) as a percentage of the total number of authentication in a given era is 50% greater in the Jones era compared to the Jacobs era. Jones left Louis Vuitton in 2018 for a position at Burberry, but his embrace of streetwear paved the way for arguably the most influential bags & leather goods streetwear designer of this era to replace him.
Virgil Abloh was unparalleled. He was an architect, an engineer, a DJ, a musician, a fashion designer – a true artist. He was a living manifestation of the idea that the only prerequisite for fashion should be a vision and tore down the notion that a privileged background and formal training were required for industry success. At Louis Vuitton, Abloh embraced color and reimagined traditional silhouettes to match the bags & leather goods streetwear aesthetic the brand had come to champion. He called it “Maintainamorphosis”: the principle that old ideas should be instilled with value and presented in tandem with new ideas because both have equal worth. Louis Vuitton handbags debuted in 2019 and 2020 – the middle of Abloh’s time at the company – represent 12% of all Louis Vuitton bags that Entrupy has authenticated. Counterfeiters also target this era. Over 20% of all the Louis Vuitton bags that Entrupy has rendered unidentifiable were from 2019 or 2020.
经过与癌症的艰苦斗争，Abloh 于 2021 年与世长辞。 文化史上的开拓者和革命者。
今年，在六月的夕阳下，Pharell Williams在新桥上发布了他对Louis Vuitton 未来发展方向的建议，举世瞩目。这场时装秀以他的个人风格为基础，旨在纪念黑人文化对时尚的贡献，其壮观和自信赢得了休闲时尚爱好者的广泛赞誉；然而，一些时尚评论家指出，创造这样一个令人津津乐道的文化时刻可能会使系列本身黯然失色。评论家们质疑这个系列是否代表了真正的新视角，并怀疑威廉姆斯是否有能力在未来的周期中再现同样的奢华。随着威廉姆斯在Louis Vuitton的事业渐入佳境，时尚界都在屏息等待他的下一个作品。他是否会继续进行面料实验，继续增加 "其他 "面料；在2022年鉴定的手袋中，有30%的面料无法按传统分类。或者，Williams 是否会遵循传统，回归到 Monogram 手袋上，因为 Monogram 手袋一直是最常见的鉴定面料？他之前的创意总监开创的先例表明，预测是危险的，天空才是极限。
