Five Creative Directors at Louis Vuitton: Jacobs to Pharrell
For most of its history Louis Vuitton was known for luggage and leather goods. In 1997 it appointed an artistic director, and the house has since been written by five people: Marc Jacobs, Kim Jones, Nicolas Ghesquière, Virgil Abloh and Pharrell Williams. This second chapter of the Louis Vuitton documentary sets out what each of them did, the works they left behind, and the Japanese thread that runs through all five tenures.
Marc Jacobs, 1997 to 2013
Marc Jacobs was named artistic director in 1997, and the house's first prêt-à-porter line followed in March 1998. He remained until November 2013, when he was replaced as women's artistic director. His legacy is the idea that the monogram is a surface on which living artists may write, a practice every later director inherited.
- Stephen Sprouse, spring/summer 2001. Graffiti written over the monogram in fluorescent colour; see the Sprouse guide.
- Takashi Murakami, 2002 to 2003. The partnership began in 2002 at Jacobs's invitation, and the Monogram Multicolore range reached the runway for spring/summer 2003; see the Murakami guide.
- Richard Prince, spring/summer 2008. Between twenty and twenty-five handbags designed with Jacobs, previewed at a Guggenheim party reported on 8 January 2008.
- Murakami's Monogramouflage, 2008. A camouflage reworking of the pattern that followed the Multicolore.
- Yayoi Kusama, 2012. Jacobs visited her studio in Japan in 2006, and the collection reached a SoHo pop-up in 2012; see the Kusama guide.
Kim Jones, 2011 to 2018
Kim Jones was hired in early 2011 as men's ready-to-wear studio and style director and left in 2018 for Dior. His years on the men's side include the Supreme pop-up of 2017, a collaboration the house dates to the same year as its two collections with Jeff Koons. At Dior Men he went on to work with the artist Hajime Sorayama: after seeing Sorayama's exhibition at the Nanzuka gallery in Tokyo he visited his studio the same day, and the Pre-Fall 2019 collection that followed was built around his silver robots, a project covered in the Sorayama guide.
- Supreme, 2017. A pop-up collaboration; see the Supreme collection.
- Jeff Koons, also 2017. The house's two collections with Koons, which carried paintings on bags; see the Koons collection.
Nicolas Ghesquière, 2013 to today
Nicolas Ghesquière was announced as women's artistic director on 4 November 2013 and showed his first line in March 2014. By October 2026 he had been with the house for nearly thirteen years, and his Spring/Summer 2027 collection, titled Ergonomics, closed Paris Fashion Week in the Cour Carrée of the Louvre. Its themes were lightness, movement and the body: composite dresses of mesh and fabric, a grey, silver and yellow palette, monogrammed aviator jackets and smaller bags, with retro-futuristic shuttles set on the runway.
- Celebrating Monogram, October 2014. A house project of his first year, in which six creators, among them Rei Kawakubo, reimagined the Monogram for the 160th-anniversary year.
- Cruise 2018, May 2017. Shown at the Miho Museum, a mountain-top building designed by I. M. Pei, with samurai, traditional dress and martial arts as references and Kabuki-inspired bags. See the Kansai Yamamoto guide.
- Spring/Summer 2027, October 2026. The Ergonomics collection in the Louvre's Cour Carrée.
Virgil Abloh, 2018 to 2021
Virgil Abloh was named men's artistic director on 26 March 2018, although some accounts give 25 March. He showed his first collection on 21 June 2018 in the gardens of the Palais-Royal, on a hand-painted rainbow runway two hundred metres long that he called a gradient painting. The 56-look collection was named Colour Theory, and its seats carried an A to Z dictionary of terms and a map of the models' birthplaces. Abloh died on 28 November 2021.
- The rainbow runway, June 2018. Inspired by the land of The Wizard of Oz, and carrying diversity to the front of the house's vocabulary.
- LV², June 2020. The capsule with NIGO, scheduled for 26 June 2020 and described in chapter three.
- Monogram Clouds and Watercolor, 2020 and 2021. Pieces in our own records, among them a blue Monogram Clouds backpack from autumn/winter 2020 and a Watercolor Keepall XS from spring/summer 2021; see the Clouds backpack and Watercolor Keepall XS.
- Rainbow trunk, 2022. The Cotteville 40 in Taurillon Illusion, dated to the Abloh era; see the Cotteville 40.
Pharrell Williams, 2023 to today
Louis Vuitton announced Pharrell Williams as men's creative director on 14 February 2023, succeeding Abloh. He presented his first collection during Paris Men's Fashion Week in June 2023 on the Pont Neuf, which was closed for the show; guests boarded boats at the Musée d'Orsay quay and sailed to the bridge. The collection mixed dandy tailoring with retro-chic sportswear and camouflage, and it offered the Damier in new forms, including a Damoflage that combined the check with camouflage, embroidered denim by the artist Henry Taylor, and a leather Speedy in primary colours, his first bag for the house. A live choir and orchestra performed a soundtrack produced with Voices of Fire, Clipse and Lang Lang, and Jay-Z performed with Williams after the show.
- The Japanese thread. Williams had designed eyewear and jewellery for the house in 2008. He is also the long-time partner of NIGO, with whom he created Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream footwear (accounts give 2003 or 2005) and the Uniqlo collection i am OTHER in April 2014.
- Kenzo. NIGO was appointed artistic director of Kenzo, a house LVMH acquired in 1993, in September 2021, and was still in post in January 2026.
What the five share
Each director found a different way to open the house to outsiders. Jacobs opened it to artists, Jones to street brands, Ghesquière to Japanese costume and craft, Abloh to the language of the street and Williams to music and to Nigo's world. The Japanese thread, in the work of Murakami, Kusama, Kawakubo, Kansai Yamamoto and NIGO, is the one constant. It is the subject of chapter four.
Dating a piece by its director
Because the creative director sets the season, a piece can often be placed by the season in which it was shown. The model number and date code confirm what the season suggests; see the guide to date codes, serials and microchips, and for jackets and ready-to-wear the ready-to-wear jackets guide.
Why Japan
Ready-to-wear and limited editions from the Jacobs, Abloh and Williams years tend to appear in Japan in careful condition, with tags, boxes and dust bags kept together. Our archive follows that pattern, and the case for it is made in Why Japan Is the World's Finest Market for Pre-owned Luxury.
In the archive now
Continue reading
- Louis Vuitton: A Documentary in Chapters
- The Trunk-Maker's Century
- Art on the Monogram
- NIGO and Human Made
- All collector guides
After a piece from a particular season or director? Our Hunting Salon™ searches across Japan's private collector circles on your behalf.
Index terms: louis vuitton creative directors · marc jacobs louis vuitton 1997 · kim jones louis vuitton · nicolas ghesquière louis vuitton · virgil abloh louis vuitton first show · pharrell williams louis vuitton pont neuf · louis vuitton damoflage · louis vuitton speedy pharrell · louis vuitton colour theory rainbow runway