MILAN — Louis Vuitton’s Objets Nomades are marking a milestone this year and the French luxury brand is celebrating accordingly during Milan Design Week
Vuitton is taking over Garage Traversi, a recently revamped former parking lot at the corner of Via Bagutta and Piazza San Babila in the Golden Triangle shopping district to celebrate the collection’s 10th anniversary.
Two floors of the 60,000-square-foot space, an original example of Rationalist architecture designed by Giuseppe De Min in 1939, will be bedecked in colorful isles to showcase the latest additions to the ever-expanding lineup of furniture and design objects.
Over the past decade 14 designers have lent their design bent to over 60 products exalting the house’s know-how and heritage rooted in travel-inclined products. The who’s who of international design who have teamed with Vuitton everyone from Patricia Urquiola, India Mahdavi and Atelier Biagetti to Zanellato/ Bortotto, Andrew Kudless, Tokujin Yoshioka, Frank Chou, Nendo, Damien Langlois- Meurinne, Barber & Osgerby, and Marcel Wanders Studio.
Acknowledging the anniversary, the brand is unveiling five new items during the week-long presentation reprising its collaboration with Atelier Oï, the Campana Brothers and London-based Raw Edge offering new iterations of now-signature pieces.
Atleri Oï’s Aurel Aebi, Armand Louis and Patrick Reymond, who joined the roster of Louis Vuitton collaborators for the first Objets Nomades collection, took a cue from their Belt Chair featuring a metal structure covered in leather strips held in place by belt buckles to develop a lounge chair, a bar stool and side stool, adding wooden details to the former two.
The cloud-shaped Bomboca sofa by Fernando and Humberto Campana — its name nodding to Brazil’s tradition of serving confectionery at weddings and children’s parties — is being remastered in a four-seat version with 11 upholstered cushions filling the leather-covered shell.
Israeli designers Shay Alkalay and Yael Mer of London-based Raw Edges used their penchant for childlike wonders typically embedded in their colorful designs, rich in different patterns, for Cosmic Table, available in indoor and outdoor versions. Boasting a carbon-fiber structure covered in brightly colored, enameled or metallic leather depending on the version, the table is complemented by a glass top.
A range of design objects never displayed in Europe before will also punctuate the exhibit. They include Frank Chou’s flowing Signature sofa and armchair; the Campana Brothers’ brightly colored Aguacate sculptural screen and playful Merengue seat; Marcel Wanders Studio’s Petal chair, and Louis Vuitton Studio’s Murano-glass totem Lumineux.
Additionally, Louis Vuitton is taking over a flower kiosk on Piazza San Babila which will be decorated with the leather Origami Flowers created by Atelier Oï and a specially branded newsstand in the same square offering a selection of books that are part of the luxury brand’s in-house publisher’s three travel-focused series “Travel Book,” “Fashion Eye” and “City Guide.”
To further mark its link with Milan, where it has been presenting its Objets Nomades collection since 2015, in addition to Design Miami where they were first introduced in 2012 , the project’s fifth installment will bring the Nova House to the city’s Piazza Duomo.
Designed in 1972 by architects Michel Hudrisier and M. Roma for Studio Rochel, the Nova House is a retrofuturistic ovoid pod with a steel frame covered in 180 strips made of aluminum alloy, which houses two bedrooms, a living room and a kitchen, as well as bathroom fitting into the its 484 square-foot surface.
Louis Vuitton has previously displayed Charlotte Perriand’s La Maison au bord de l’eau in 2015; Matti Suuronen’s Futuro House in 2017; George Candilis’s Hexacube in 2018, and Shigeru Ban’s Paper Temporary Studio in 2019 installing the houses in the courtyards of Palazzo Bocconi and Palazzo Serbelloni where it used to hold its previous Objets Nomades displays.