The fashion house broadly known for their insignia brown bags and luggage branched into architecture this week. Louis Vuitton has created a real-life version of a 1934 house design by French architect Charlotte Perriand, one of the first female modernists, who was famously rejected by Le Corbusier before being offered a place in his studio.
"It’s hard to think of a modern woman more modern than Charlotte Perriand. Creative, intelligent, well traveled and athletic, the native Parisian was a pioneer of design at a time when women’s options in the field were limited mainly to ceramics and textiles," writes Pilar Viladas in The New York Times Style Magazine.
The Perriand-designed house, La Maison au Bord de l'Eau (the house on the water, according to Google Translate), is currently on display at the Raleigh hotel in Miami Beach for Design Miami/.
While this is hardly the first time that the fashion design world has melded with architecture—or vice versa—this may be one of the more thorough mixings. The French design brand built an entire Perriand house that showcases their summer 2014 collection, Icônes, which was inspired by the architect. The effect, as described in Women's Wear Daily:
"The airy, spartan rooms display the 2014 Icônes collection like someone actually lives there — a checkered sun hat and curled orange belt on a shelf, a leather jacket laid across the bed, more items hanging in built-in cupboards from where trundle beds emerge."
What will become of the house after the installation concludes Saturday is unknown. Sotheby's is handling the sale of the house, but it's a private sale—a Louis Vuitton spokesperson declined to provide price details, but did say the house would either go to the new owner or stored.
