Sometimes, in the middle of the mail received by the stores, slips a letter addressed to Mr. Louis Vuitton, often a request for information. It also happens that, during events in certain countries, clients ask: "Will Mr. Vuitton be there?" Mr. Louis. Who? In the family, almost everyone has been called Louis for two hundred years. A tribute to the founding father perpetuated until today from his grandson - who only wore it as a middle name. Gaston-Louis, Henry-Louis, Claude-Louis, Jacques-Louis, Patrick-Louis… As one would say Louis XIII, Louis XIV, Louis XV… And it is true that there are a few of all these Louis - some more than others, obviously - in Louis Vuitton, the house, the brand, the company: as if the shared first name summarized all the generational contributions.
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Louis Vuitton: behind the scenes of the Asnières factory in 1904
But from Louis itself, he was only one and he would have been 200 years old on August 4th. Little remains of him: his birth certificate, extremely rare photos taken at the end of his life and an unsigned trunk, bought by his grandson, who, in the 1950s, would have formally identified the work of his grandfather. It is this same Gaston who, in 1960, writes a history of the house in a notebook with small squares, an extraordinary handwritten document that the archives keep preciously. Unique copy in which are reproduced various previous texts which celebrate the ancestors, their know-how, their ingenuity, their daring and which inform us about the company. As for the man, his story was transmitted orally from Louis to Louis, until Henry (fourth generation) published his
Malle aux souvenirs
, published by Éditions Mengès, in 1984, in only 4000 copies.
This shows to what extent the life of our primus inter pares is still confidential.
However, it unconsciously sheds light on the whole history of the house;
it presages all its evolutions;
she has, in an idolatrous family story, pushed each generation to be an entrepreneur that lives up to her first name.
Worthy of Louis, first of the name.
Front of rue Scribe, the second historic address of the house.
Louis Vuitton Archives
The apprenticeship years
A singular and symbolic story attested by certain documents and magnified by oral tradition: that of a young miller's son from the Jura forests, orphan of a mother, who, in 1835, at the age of 13, left his reconstituted family to explore, in wooden clogs, the 420 kilometers that separate the Anchay mill from Paris. Eighty-six hours of walking, Google Maps assures us today. It will take two years: it will be his Odyssey. Guided as much by his goal as by his passion for carpentry, he made detours, lingering in the forests of Morvan or Othe: in his native Jura, there were mostly pines, spruces, he became familiar with with oak, cherry, poplar ...
“To find accommodation and food, it is 'rented out' all along the way. At random, he will be a stable boy or a kitchen attendant (…) and seek (…) the opportunity to work with wood ”,
writes the great-grandson Henry.
He arrived in Paris in 1837, poor like Job and as an apprentice with Romain Maréchal, layetier-packeur, where, for sixteen years, he made boxes, crates (laies or layettes, as they were called. still in the previous century) and protected precious objects and voluminous dresses, until, up penny by penny, his savings enabled him to settle in his name in 1854. He was then 32 years old. He got married a few months earlier. There is undoubtedly, in these eighteen years of initiatory journey, material to found the legend. Enough to provide the house with a whole mythology: the spirit of independence of the emancipated adolescent, the curiosity and the adventure of his great march, the will and determination of his long training. The long time. In a nutshell: daring,established as a fundamental value by its successors.
Birth of the modern trunk
The second act in our Ludovician history is that of the house in his name.
At the time, there were three hundred packers in Paris.
Including a certain Constant Vuiton (with only one T), who is none other than a cousin - and who will therefore have left neither his name nor his first name.
The profession accompanies a new fashion which makes dresses more voluminous and more fragile, a social life which multiplies the toilets and a development of transport which favors travel.
In any case, this is the specialty towards which our young entrepreneur is heading: by moving in near the rue de la Paix, he plays the proximity with the nerve center of fashion of the time;
he was also friends with the couturier Charles Frederick Worth, who settled there shortly after.
With tissue paper, bubble wrap, ribbons, it
“Securely packs the most fragile items”,
as stated in an early advertising label.
He prepares boxes - made ad hoc by his suppliers - that a rudimentary form and technicality certainly do not allow to call "trunks".
Curved trunk in Trianon gray canvas from 1860: this is the oldest model preserved.
ALL RIGHTS / Louis Vuitton photo library
These quickly arrived in the catalog of the house: in 1858, Louis set up a workshop near the Saint-Lazare station, where he found his first love, wood. A trunk is then an object that we would more readily call today a “trunk”. Heavy, rounded, rustic, not to say coarse. Louis immediately solves the first problem: the poplar, surrounded by metal, retains its solidity but considerably lightens it. Then, it will be the flat slatted trunk, a brilliant idea that allows them to be stacked. Different coatings elegantly dress the wood or the metal: a gray canvas, later striped, then the checkerboard ... They waterproof, also make it possible to identify the product and, it is believed at the time, to fight against copying. .
Where Louis excels, it is in the interior fittings, experience of layetier oblige.
Its fabric hood inserts to absorb shocks, their ribbons to prick needles;
the multiple compartments and their adjustable straps to fix them, the lockers, the drawers;
later wardrobes.
All these ingenuities, dictated by their function, have little by little defined an aesthetic: in a few years, Louis has set the standards for what is now called "a trunk" but which, looking at everything, should be. 'call "a Vuitton trunk" so as not to be confused with a trunk.
One of the first labels of the house, inside the hood of a trunk.
Louis Vuitton Archives
The hero of the story
This Louis is the inventor, the craftsman, the entrepreneur, the designer, we would dare to anticipate.
The “visionary”, we summarize today in Vuitton's storytelling.
With the audacity of our first act, he forms the character of a Balzacian ideal: splendours without miseries, greatness without decadence.
A witness whose personal history also tells that of his time and the major upheavals in society, whether industrial, cultural, geopolitical.
It is all these stories that Caroline Bongrand interweaves, adding the romantic to the mythological, in this book of a lifetime that she publishes at Gallimard *.
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Happy who, like Louis Vuitton, has made a long trip
"Louis is the man of an epic that carries far beyond him alone,
" she explains.
We are defined by his acts, their coherence, their repetition: in him they constitute a bundle of clues which inform us about the character of man. I did an investigative job, a puzzle to piece together. Then, I felt invested with this mission: to imagine the part of his life that had disappeared. As with an actor, it is also the work of the writer to step into the skin of the character. ”
A hero?
“The lesson that Louis offers us is that with what is given to us, we must push our talent to the maximum and demand the best of ourselves. I don't know if it's heroic, but it's magnificent. ”
* Louis Vuitton. L'audacieux, by
Caroline Bongrand, Gallimard, October 2021.
Life and work of Louis Vuitton
1821 -
Birth in Anchay, in the Jura, of Louis Vuitton, miller's son, fourth of six children.
1835 - 1837 -
The initiatory journey.
He leaves his family and his village and crosses France on foot to come to Paris.
1837 - 1854 -
The formative years.
He joined Romain Maréchal, layetier-packer, a profession in vogue at a time when transport was developing.
1854 -
He marries Clémence-Émilie Parriaux and establishes his house on rue Neuve-des-Capucines, in the milliners and dressmakers district.
1859 -
Opening of the first workshops in Asnières.
They will continue to grow over the following decades.
Special orders are still made here today.
1870 -
First soft leather luggage (clothes bag, night bags, etc.).
The development is such that, ten years later, an entire department will be dedicated to their manufacture.
1871 -
In the midst of the fires which raged during the Paris Commune, all of the archives of the house burned down.
The first sales book kept dates from the following year.
1875 -
Creation of the first “Wardrobe”, a vertical trunk that opens in its center and is compartmentalized on both sides to be used as a wardrobe when traveling.
1880 -
He sells the rue Scribe store to his son Georges and retires to the Asnières factory, where he is only concerned with the manufacture and design of new models.
1885 - The
first overseas store opens in London.
Louis had taken care to train his son to be bilingual.
1888 -
Creation of the checkered canvas which replaces the striped canvas.
By setting up a characteristic exterior covering, it marks the aesthetics of its trunks
1889 -
Gold medal at the Universal Exhibition in Paris (after having received various prizes at other international exhibitions).
1890 -
The house sets up a social protection and retirement system for the staff.
1892 -
Death of Louis Vuitton, aged 71. His son, Georges, is now alone in command.
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