Fashion turns into art

Take Sotheby’s, the world's leading destination for art, and Louis Vuitton, synonymous with luxury fashion, and imagine a charity event for associations and NGOs. And what you get is a very special auction (online until July 12) featuring 22 Louis Vuitton Artycapucines bags designed by genius artists, each of them reissued, signed and presented in a custom Louis Vuitton Monogram Boîte Chapeau. 

This record-breaking event stars the Capucines bag–named after Rue Neuve-des-Capucines, the street in Paris where Louis Vuitton opened its first store in 1854–as a blank canvas giving free rein to the creativity of international artists in the annual Artycapucines collections presented since 2019. 

The 22 Artycapucines bags presented in this one-off auction are exceptional, unique pieces created using the same savoir-faire and materials as the original limited-edition versions, a process that required painstaking research of materials and a wide variety of meticulous and challenging craft techniques.

Each bag is signed by the artist under the flap and will be presented in a Louis Vuitton Monogram Boîte Chapeau, a modern hatbox based on the original 1924 design. Each of these unique creations will be “signed” by the artist, with customizations ranging from simple signatures to more elaborate works of art. Louis Vuitton will donate the net proceeds from the sale of each of these exclusive Artycapucines to a charity or NGO of the artist's choice, including UNICEF and NGOs working to alleviate poverty, provide disaster relief, education and for refugee rights.

The 22 participating artists are Amélie Bertrand, Daniel Buren, Sam Falls, Urs Fischer, Gregor Hildebrandt, Donna Huanca, Huang Yuxing, Alex Israel, Liu Wei, Peter Marino, Beatriz Milhazes, Vik Muniz, Jean-Michel Othoniel, Park Seo-Bo, Paola Pivi, Ugo Rondinone, Tschabalala Self, Josh Smith, Jonas Wood, Kennedy Yanko, Zeng Fanzhi and Zhao Zhao.