Louis Vuitton’s boite of tricks

Did Health and Safety officers really sign off the vertiginous marble, brass, mirror and light-boxed staircase that links the three floors of Louis Vuitton’s newest, most lavish and high tech shop? For it’s a precarious assault course for any biped without a head for heights. With 23 square meters of banded light-box, steel and stone panels I wasn’t sure if I was on a flat surface or needing to take a step up or down. A Perspex escalator would have felt like solid ground.

A deliberate disorientation by the store’s leather-capped, architect Peter Marino? Shoppers will feel so relieved on reaching their destination they’ll be more than happy to lay down £999 on a monogrammed ‘Keepall’ weekend bag if they arrive in one piece. This kind of purchase needs to fly off these shelves many times an hour to make this lavishly bedecked store pay. No doubt they will. Then the customer will then have something soft, squidgy and expensive to land on if they take a tumble back on the vertiginous stairs.

This is a titan of a store, the Vuitton’s most luxurious. ‘Maison’, excuse me. It is made from Aniegre wood, Corian, French embossed leather, Afromosia wood, French Lacquer, Portland stone, glass and engineered high-gloss wood veneer. Custom-made is the starting point for rugs, shot silk and leather chairs and sofas and drunken hand beaten metal tables stand tipsily on the menswear floor. There are also ceiling-suspended rotating planets made from glass and plastic, and in the sunglass area has a ‘central oculous’ like a big brother all-seeing eye, but way more chic. It is in fact a light feature resembling the human iris a useful reminder of what sunglasses are meant to protect.

I know Louis Vuitton’s schtick is travel, but with this store they manage to take you off the planet entirely to a universe far, far away. It’s a mighty achievement for the luxury French leather good manufacturer who first opened a shop in London 125 years ago. And in keeping with the 11%, global economy-defying profits LVMH posted over the past year.

Of course all this conspicuous, open-to-anyone access of these first three floors might feel a little too democratic, or even dangerous to some of the ‘maison’s’ most discreet, famous or fearful customers. These special customers will be whisked to the ‘Apartment’ – an open plan space on the 2^nd floor that is sectioned off into private shopping suites, each decked with fireplaces, antique and vintage furniture. Access is via a private lift.

The LV ‘Maison’ is a sort of art gallery too. ‘Kiki’ a sculpture by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami who has worked closely with the brand producing a candy-bright monogram, greets shoppers on the ground floor. Works by Richard Prince are also featured throughout the store. Downstairs look out for ‘Paws’, a work by Gilbert and George in the menswear department.

Unfortunately, the most fun piece of art on display, Michael Landy’s Credit Card Destroying Machine, will moved to a new home shortly. It was placed at the bottom of the stairs for the opening launch party. This brilliantly-named art work – a Heath Robinson-esque machine of stuck on grotesquerie - fright masks, doll faces and severed limbs, bells and whistles also scribbles abstractions onto pieces of A4 paper. Of course, it has to be moved. As all the credit card destroying – or, indeed, melting - will now be managed in-house by Louis Vuitton itself.

Louis Vuitton’s boite of tricks

Did Health and Safety officers really sign off the vertiginous marble, brass, mirror and light-boxed staircase that links the three floors of Louis Vuitton’s newest, most lavish and high tech shop? For it’s a precarious assault course for any biped without a head for heights. With 23 square meters of banded light-box, steel and stone panels I wasn’t sure if I was on a flat surface or needing to take a step up or down. A Perspex escalator would have felt like solid ground.

A deliberate disorientation by the store’s leather-capped, architect Peter Marino? Shoppers will feel so relieved on reaching their destination they’ll be more than happy to lay down £999 on a monogrammed ‘Keepall’ weekend bag if they arrive in one piece. This kind of purchase needs to fly off these shelves many times an hour to make this lavishly bedecked store pay. No doubt they will. Then the customer will then have something soft, squidgy and expensive to land on if they take a tumble back on the vertiginous stairs.

This is a titan of a store, the Vuitton’s most luxurious. ‘Maison’, excuse me. It is made from Aniegre wood, Corian, French embossed leather, Afromosia wood, French Lacquer, Portland stone, glass and engineered high-gloss wood veneer. Custom-made is the starting point for rugs, shot silk and leather chairs and sofas and drunken hand beaten metal tables stand tipsily on the menswear floor. There are also ceiling-suspended rotating planets made from glass and plastic, and in the sunglass area has a ‘central oculous’ like a big brother all-seeing eye, but way more chic. It is in fact a light feature resembling the human iris a useful reminder of what sunglasses are meant to protect.

I know Louis Vuitton’s schtick is travel, but with this store they manage to take you off the planet entirely to a universe far, far away. It’s a mighty achievement for the luxury French leather good manufacturer who first opened a shop in London 125 years ago. And in keeping with the 11%, global economy-defying profits LVMH posted over the past year.

Of course all this conspicuous, open-to-anyone access of these first three floors might feel a little too democratic, or even dangerous to some of the ‘maison’s’ most discreet, famous or fearful customers. These special customers will be whisked to the ‘Apartment’ – an open plan space on the 2^nd floor that is sectioned off into private shopping suites, each decked with fireplaces, antique and vintage furniture. Access is via a private lift.

The LV ‘Maison’ is a sort of art gallery too. ‘Kiki’ a sculpture by Japanese artist Takashi Murakami who has worked closely with the brand producing a candy-bright monogram, greets shoppers on the ground floor. Works by Richard Prince are also featured throughout the store. Downstairs look out for ‘Paws’, a work by Gilbert and George in the menswear department.

Unfortunately, the most fun piece of art on display, Michael Landy’s Credit Card Destroying Machine, will moved to a new home shortly. It was placed at the bottom of the stairs for the opening launch party. This brilliantly-named art work – a Heath Robinson-esque machine of stuck on grotesquerie - fright masks, doll faces and severed limbs, bells and whistles also scribbles abstractions onto pieces of A4 paper. Of course, it has to be moved. As all the credit card destroying – or, indeed, melting - will now be managed in-house by Louis Vuitton itself.

Step in Line

Tommy Hilfiger and the Keith Haring Foundation's trainer collaboration would certainly have been worn by the pop artist himself.

Not for Keith Haring the snobbery and obsession with money found in the art market in 1980s New York. An obsession, indeed, that is even more rampant today. Haring’s art – linear graphics celebrating leaping, dancing human figures, dogs, babies, snakes and any other objects that could be rendered by his hand in a sinuous black line – turned up on subway station walls, street corners, badges and extremely large pieces of paper. Haring took art to people even when those people were on the street busily trying to head elsewhere.

Which makes the collaboration between Tommy Hilfiger and the Keith Haring Foundation a neat marriage. The artist’s figures and buzzing hieroglyphs are emblazoned onto trainers and boots – so you pull the art onto your feet and then hit the street in them, making them far away from the refined world of the gallery where most art would like to see itself comfortably leaning on a pristine white wall.

Both Tommy Hilfiger and the Keith Haring Foundation help youngsters through education and support for those affected by AIDS. Both these foundations are linked by developing these trainers.

Haring’s tragically short life – he died at 32 in 1990 of AIDS – was full of a prodigious creativity and an intense work schedule making his art some of the most recognized and loved of the past thirty years. The exuberance and child-like charm of his work is life affirming like a vertical plunge on a roller coaster with you hands thrust in the air. And, of course, trainers are just the right footwear to be leaping through life in.

As the Haring himself said, "I am interested in making art to be experienced and explored by as many individuals as possible with as many different individual ideas about the given piece with no final meaning attached.” He wrote these words in 1978 when he first arrived in New York. Which if you change the word art to fashion, this works as a manifesto for how we dress today.

The higher top ankle boot styles are the style cognoscenti’s choice this summer and I’ll be wearing the ones in bright blue. If you’re going to wear a cult-artists designs on your feet then why be shy by hiding them in black or grey?

Men’s trainers from £89.99 exclusively at Dover Street Market from 7^th May