A 130-year-old signature is being rewoven, quite literally - swapping coated canvas for a dense, embroidery-like jacquard that puts texture, not just print, at the centre of the story.
Closing the S-Lock clasp of the Side Trunk Monogram Embleme. Picture: Supplied, Avenue PR for Louis Vuitton
For over a century, French fashion house Louis Vuitton’s most recognisable motif (its monogram) has done its talking visually. Almost everyone in the modern world knows the iconic coated canvas print, flat and instantly legible from across a room.
This season, that design language is getting a more muted, sophisticated look. Beyond a simple redraw, the pattern has been rewoven, taking the tactile experience of the fashion house into the future.
A fabric-first reinvention
Marking the monogram’s 130th anniversary, the house is introducing a jacquard canvas that trades ink for thread. Rather than printing the motif onto fabric, the design is now knitted directly into a blend of GOTS-certified cotton and linen – a construction that gives the surface genuine dimension.
The monogram pattern rises and recedes rather than simply sitting there when you run a hand across it. The effect deliberately recalls embroidery, beloved for its denser, more deliberate feel, bringing the new LV wares closer to needlework than signage.
Texture introduces friction, literally and conceptually, in a meaningful pivot that elevates a glance that might otherwise skim past a familiar pattern on autopilot.
Colour as archive
The palette draws from the house’s internal colour library, with each shade built from five differently coloured threads worked together – a technique that gives even a single hue a kind of internal depth, shifting subtly depending on the light.
Two colourways lead the rollout, arriving in stores from 5 June: a dusty rose named for the ribbon trim found on historic trunk designs, and a warmer neutral inspired by the timber structure of those same trunks. Two further shades – a navy pulled from the house’s 1930s archive and a green nodding to the flora of its home region – follow in September, extending the story from nostalgic pastel into something closer to heritage cataloguing.
Where it lands
The new jacquard has been applied across the house’s most enduring bag silhouettes; structured, soft, and trunk-adjacent alike, as well as extending into small leather goods, footwear and accessories.
Rather than launching as a single hero style, the treatment spreads horizontally across the archive, functioning less like a seasonal capsule and more like a material refresh applied to the back catalogue itself.
