Louis Vuitton Trunks and Hard Cases: The Collector’s Atlas

From Trianon grey to Monogram

Five canvases in forty years.

Louis Vuitton opened his workshop in Paris in 1854. In 1858 he introduced a trunk with a flat top, covered in a grey canvas later called Trianon, which could be stacked in the hold of a ship or a railway carriage where domed trunks could not.

Imitation followed quickly, and each new canvas was a response to it: red and beige stripes in 1872, beige and brown stripes in 1876, the Damier check in 1888, and in 1896 the Monogram canvas that Georges Vuitton designed in memory of his father.

• Sizes and references: Trianon, striped, Damier and Monogram trunks.
• What to look for: Identify the canvas first; it dates a trunk to within a few decades.

The flat trunk and the Courrier

The steamer-age workhorse.

The flat trunk, in the version called the Courrier, is the classic form: wooden frame, canvas skin, lozine or leather trim, brass corners and studs, and a removable tray inside. The lower cabin trunk was sized to slide under a bunk on an ocean liner.

• Sizes and references: Courrier and cabin trunks in sizes from about 70 to 110 cm.
• What to look for: Check the slats for splits, the tray and its ribbons, the hinges, and whether the lock and keys match.

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The wardrobe trunk

A closet that travels standing up.

Opened upright, the wardrobe trunk holds hangers on one side and drawers on the other. It was made for long voyages, when a traveller lived out of a trunk for weeks.

• Sizes and references: Wardrobe trunks in several heights; interiors vary by period and special order.
• What to look for: Count the hangers and drawers against the original fitting, and check the drawer pulls.

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Alzer, Bisten and Cotteville

The hard suitcase of the twentieth century.

As travel moved to cars and aeroplanes, the house made lighter hard-sided suitcases. The Alzer and the Bisten, made in sizes from about 60 to 80 cm, and the smaller Cotteville are the shapes most often found in Japanese collections today.

• Sizes and references: Alzer 60 to 80; Bisten 50 to 80; Cotteville 40 to 50.
• What to look for: Check the corners and handle, the lock and the interior straps.

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Vanity and jewellery cases

Small hard cases with fitted interiors.

Vanity cases such as the Boîte Flacons, jewellery coffrets and watch cases carry the trunk-making craft into a size that can sit on a dressing table. Their size makes them the easiest hard cases to collect and to ship.

• Sizes and references: Boîte Flacons, Coffret and jewellery cases.
• What to look for: Check the mirror, the fitted trays and the clasp.

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Labels, locks and dating

How a trunk tells its own age.

Most trunks carry a serial number on a paper or leather label inside and a numbered lock on the front. Labels naming a branch such as Paris, Nice, Vichy, Cannes or London help date an example, and hand-painted initials and stripes on the lid record its first owner.

Large trunks exceed postal size and weight limits and travel by specialist freight. Ask the Curator Team for a delivery quote before you commit.

• Sizes and references: Serial numbers on the label and the lock.
• What to look for: Check that the label, the lock number and the canvas all tell the same story.