December 13, 2008

Louis Vuitton $pecial-Order Cases::



Louis Vuitton makes a case for everything. Really. If there's something you want to carry in a Louis Vuitton case, they will probably make one for you.


The only criteria-strictly enforced to honor the original spirit of the 150-year-old company-are that the item is portable and that its raison d'être is transport. "We are in the business of movement," says Patrick-Louis Vuitton, a fifth-generation member of the founding family who oversees all of LV's custom projects. "A special order is a compromise between desires and needs from the client and our aesthetic and technical requirements." 


Louis Vuitton makes about 450 special-order cases every year at their Asnières, France workshop. The process of creating a perfect case for a client's needs can take four to five months, but their policy is to never exceed eight.


Over the years, cases have been created for everything from hookah pipes to a portable altar for a French priest heading to a desert archaeological dig in the 1920's.


Louis Vuitton won't make just anything, though. If they don't like your request (say, to put little LV's all over the interior of your car, they'll modify the idea and make a suggestion - their polite version of refusal.

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