The Louis Vuitton Atlas: A Collector's Guide to Models, Canvases and Date Codes

1854 to 1860: the packer turns trunk-maker

Louis Vuitton was born in 1821 in Anchay, a village in the Jura where his family had worked watermills since the seventeenth century. At fourteen he set out for Paris on foot and took about two years to arrive, working as a day labourer and stable boy on the way. In 1837 he was apprenticed to Romain Maréchal, a trunk-maker and packer, and stayed seventeen years. The whole chronology, chapter by chapter, is laid out in our documentary history of the house; what matters for a collector is how quickly the trade of packing became the trade of making.

Shop near Vendôme, workshop by Saint-Lazare

In 1854, the year he married, Vuitton opened his own shop at No. 4 rue Neuve-des-Capucines, a short walk from the Place Vendôme and the dressmakers of the rue de la Paix. The couple lived in the mezzanine flat above it. At first he had trunks made by others and found the quality wanting, so in 1858 he rented a workshop at No. 76 rue du Rocher, near the Saint-Lazare station, and began making them himself. The early trunks had rounded lids and iron bands, the norm of the time; within a few years he had replaced the dome with a flat top, which let trunks stack in a luggage van and in a ship's hold.

The land at Asnières

The rue du Rocher rooms were soon too small. The Asnières plot, on the rue du Congrès, was bought in 1859, and the house dates the building of the workshops to 1860. The workshop began with about twenty people; by 1914 there were 225. The family later made its home on the site, and Asnières is where special orders are made today. For the century that followed, from the wardrobe trunk to the steamer bag, read the trunk-makers' century.

Grey, stripes, checks and initials

The patterns on a Louis Vuitton piece are a record of a fight against copying. Each new canvas answered imitations of the one before, and each was registered. That is why the pattern on a bag is the first thing to date it by, before any stamp.

Trianon grey and the striped cloth

Vuitton covered his flat trunks in oil-painted hemp canvas, lighter than leather and waterproof. It was first called gris ordinaire, ordinary grey, and later Trianon grey. When that was copied, the house introduced a red and beige striped canvas in 1872, changed it to beige with alternating light and dark stripes four years later, and filed a patent on the designs in 1877.

Damier, 1888

The stripes were imitated too. In 1888 Louis and his son Georges answered with the Damier, a chequerboard of brown and beige squares, and Georges registered it with the words "Marque L. Vuitton Déposée" set into one of the small squares: the first time the family name appeared on the outside of a trunk. A year later Georges patented a multi-tumbler lock that let a client open every case in a set with one key.

The Monogram, 1896

When the Damier was copied in turn, Georges began looking for a new motif in 1895 and settled on the initials L and V with three floral figures, in tribute to his father, who had died in 1892. The house names Art Nouveau, Gothic heraldry and Japonism among its inspirations. Some of the flowers recall cherry blossoms, and the house's 2016 Tokyo exhibition stressed the pattern's likeness to Japanese family crests, the kamon. It was called the L.V. canvas at first; Louis Vuitton says the name Monogram canvas has been used from 1986. In January 2026 the house opened a year of celebrations for the pattern's 130th anniversary.

Coated cloth for soft bags

The Monogram suited rigid luggage but cracked on soft bags. In the late 1950s the family developed a new coating process that made the canvas supple enough to fold, and the modern handbag range grew from it. The Speedy and the Noé were both put into Monogram as city bags in 1959. The canvases and leathers are taken one by one in our guide to Monogram, Damier, Epi and Vernis.

Leathers beside the coated cloth

Canvas with leather trim is the house's best-known combination, but three leathers deserve to be read on their own, because each ages in its own way and each is graded differently.

Epi

Epi arrived in 1985 as a durable alternative to canvas. The house traces its grain to leathers it used in the 1920s, including a tea case made for a maharaja in 1926. The leather is drum-dyed and embossed with horizontal ridges; épi is French for an ear of wheat. It holds its shape, resists scratches and keeps its colour, which is why an Epi Alma or Noé from the 1990s can still look crisp. When we grade Epi we look first at the corners and the edges of the handles, where rubbing shows soonest.

Vernis and Empreinte

Vernis, a varnished leather embossed with the Monogram, was created for the spring and summer show of 1998. Louis Vuitton's own care notes warn that it takes up colour from anything it touches, magazines and denim included, and that pale shades can yellow with time and light. Empreinte, launched in 2010, presses the Monogram into soft calfskin instead; it drapes, and it shows scratches more readily than Epi.

Vachetta and its patina

Vachetta is the natural, untreated cowhide used for the handles, trim and piping of the canvas bags. It begins pale, almost ivory, and darkens to honey and amber as it takes up oils from hands and air. Handles and corners darken first. The house's own advice is not to clean an early stain but to let the leather darken around it, and to blot water at once with a light, lint-free cloth. For a collector, even colour across all the Vachetta on a bag is a better sign than any particular shade.

How the bags are organised

Louis Vuitton has added new shapes in every decade, but a handful of families account for most of what collectors look for. Each began with a practical job, and that job explains its proportions.

Travel: Steamer and Keepall

The Steamer bag of the early 1900s was a soft, foldable laundry bag made to fit in the lower compartment of a wardrobe trunk on a transatlantic crossing. The Keepall followed as a soft travel bag; the house's heritage timeline places it in the 1930s under the name Tientout, while other accounts give 1924. Its rounded body, padlock and Toron handles, the rolled leather handles that recur across the range, set the pattern for the bags that came after.

Speedy

The Speedy began as the Express, a carry-on bag that Gaston-Louis Vuitton designed in the 1930s for an age fascinated by speed. It was named Speedy 30 for its width in centimetres. Popular accounts say Audrey Hepburn asked for a smaller version in 1965, which became the Speedy 25; it is a good story, and probably fashion folklore. The Speedy Bandoulière, with a long shoulder strap, followed in 2011. Earlier Speedys are read by their size, their Vachetta and their date stamp.

Noé and Alma

In 1932 a champagne house asked for a bag strong enough to carry five bottles, and Gaston-Louis Vuitton drew the Noé, a bucket with a drawstring. The Alma began in 1934 as the Squire Bag, was renamed Champs-Élysées and then Marceau, and took the name Alma only in 1992. Its small BB format arrived in 2010. That sequence matters: a bag described as an "Alma" from the 1950s is, by the house's own record, a Squire or a Champs-Élysées. The first four families are compared side by side in our guide to the Speedy, Keepall, Noé and Alma.

Later shapes: Neverfull to Coussin

The Sac Plat began as a beach bag in 1968. The Christopher backpack appeared in the men's show for autumn and winter 2004 to 2005. The Neverfull of 2007 was a deliberate answer to a gap in the range, and its slim handles are reinforced to carry more than 100 kilograms. The Capucines, named after the first shop's street, came in 2013; the Petite Malle, a small trunk modelled on those of the banker Albert Kahn, in Nicolas Ghesquière's first women's show for autumn and winter 2014; the OnTheGo in 2019; the Coussin in spring and summer 2021.

Trunks and hard cases

Trunks are where the house began, and they are read differently from bags: by construction, labels, locks and hardware rather than by date stamp.

Wardrobe and bed trunks

The wardrobe trunk of 1875 stood upright in a cabin and opened like a cupboard, so a traveller did not have to unpack. Georges Vuitton patented a trunk that unfolded into a bed in 1885 and showed it at the international exhibitions. Louis Vuitton had won a bronze medal at the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1867, where he was registered as a "packer and manufacturer of travel trunks".

Reading an old case

On an older trunk or suitcase, look first at the frame and canvas, then the corners, the lock and its number, and the paper label inside the lid. Repairs are common and are part of a trunk's life; what matters is that they are named. A Louis Vuitton Cotteville 45 hard case in Monogram, with brass corners and a handle cover shows the form at a manageable size; the Louis Vuitton trunks shelf holds the larger pieces. Dating and restoring the older ones is covered in our guide to antique Louis Vuitton trunks.

Designers and artists since 1997

For most of its history Louis Vuitton made luggage and leather goods. That changed in 1997, when Marc Jacobs was named artistic director and the house began ready-to-wear. The collaborations he started produced most of the limited pieces that collectors chase today. The full line of directors, from Jacobs to Pharrell Williams, is set out in our account of five creative directors.

Jacobs and the first collaborations

Stephen Sprouse wrote graffiti across the Monogram for spring 2001, the first of the artist collaborations under Jacobs. Murakami followed in 2003, Richard Prince in 2007, and Kusama in 2012. The record of every artist from Sprouse to the 2023 projects is in our history of art on the Monogram.

Murakami's 33 colours

Jacobs saw Takashi Murakami's work at the Fondation Cartier in 2002 and asked him to redraw the Monogram. The result, shown in the spring 2003 collection, set the pattern in 33 colours on white or black coated canvas, and it generated more than $300 million in its first year. Cherry Blossom, Panda and Cerises followed, and in 2008 Murakami's Brooklyn Museum retrospective included a working Louis Vuitton boutique. The house ended the collaboration in 2015 and revived it with a re-edition from 1 January 2025. A Louis Vuitton x Takashi Murakami Speedy 25 in Monogram Cerises, from about 2005 shows the cherries printed on the Speedy body; the Takashi Murakami shelf holds his other work. The twelve years are traced season by season in our history of the collaboration from 2003 to 2015.

Kusama, 2012 and 2023

Jacobs visited Yayoi Kusama in Tokyo in 2006, and the collaboration that grew from that meeting arrived in stores on 11 July 2012, alongside her retrospective at the Whitney, which Louis Vuitton sponsored. The second collaboration, Creating Infinity, was revealed in January 2023 under Nicolas Ghesquière, with motifs called Painted Dots, Metal Dots, Infinity Dots and Psychedelic Flowers, and a second release at the end of March. A Louis Vuitton x Yayoi Kusama Twist PM M21695 in Painted Dots Epi leather, yellow and black carries the Painted Dots on Epi leather; the Yayoi Kusama shelf gathers the rest of her work.

After Jacobs

Ghesquière took over women's collections in 2013. Kim Jones led menswear and brought in the Chapman brothers and Supreme; Virgil Abloh followed in 2018 and Pharrell Williams in 2023. The Supreme project of 2017 included pieces in red Epi: a Louis Vuitton x Supreme Keepall Bandoulière 45 M53419 in red Epi, 2017, unused with its accessories is one of them, and our Luxury Archive shelf places it among the other maisons.

Japan and the house

Japonism is one of the three inspirations the house names for the Monogram of 1896, and Japan has been one of its most established markets since its first shops opened there in 1978. Why so many fine pieces came to rest here is the subject of our essay on the world's treasures in Japan.

A client card from 1883

When the house prepared its Volez, Voguez, Voyagez exhibition for Tokyo in 2016, its chief executive, Michael Burke, and the curator Olivier Saillard found a client card from 1883 for Itagaki Taisuke, the politician who led the Freedom and People's Rights Movement and had travelled to France to study Western democracies. One of his suitcases went on show. The exhibition ran free of charge from 23 April to 19 June 2016 and added a Japan chapter to the Paris version, including make-up and tea ceremony trunks made for the kabuki actor Ebizō XI.

1978, Kioicho and Ginza

Louis Vuitton opened its first franchise shops in Japan in 1978, in Tokyo and Osaka; the Tokyo shop was in Kioicho. In 1981 it opened its first directly run shop in Japan on Namiki-dōri in Ginza, and the house describes itself as the first European fashion firm to open a directly operated store there, without the big trading companies. In 2016 the company counted 50 shops in Japan, 15 of them in Tokyo, and named Japanese clients as its third-largest group after Chinese and American ones.

Buildings by Jun Aoki

The architect Jun Aoki has given the house several of its Japanese buildings. The Omotesandō store, built between April 2001 and August 2002, is a stack of irregular rectangular volumes, 25.5 metres wide and 31.9 metres high, clad in metal mesh, polished stainless panels and patterned glass. In March 2021 the Ginza Namiki store, on the corner the house had occupied since 1981, reopened in a seven-storey building by Jun Aoki and Associates, wrapped in rippling glass with a dichroic film, with interiors by Peter Marino. The longer exchange between the house and Japanese patrons, craftsmen and artists is told in our history of Louis Vuitton and Japan.

Kyoto, 2017

On 14 May 2017 Ghesquière showed the Cruise 2018 collection at the Miho Museum in the hills near Kyoto, a building designed by I. M. Pei in 1997. Kansai Yamamoto, seated in the front row in a red suit, had drawn samurai faces and other traditional Japanese designs for the sequinned dresses and leather bags. The Kansai Yamamoto shelf holds his own work.

Date codes and the chip

A date code is a short stamp of letters and numbers that records where and when a piece was made. It is not a serial number: many pieces from the same workshop in the same week share a code. It helps place a bag in time, and it proves nothing on its own. The marks of Louis Vuitton and Chanel are compared in our guide to date codes, serials and microchips.

Where the stamp hides

The stamp is usually on a small leather tab inside an interior pocket, inside the bag where a handle is attached, or under a small flap. On Vachetta it can fade with the patina; on Epi it can sink into the grain. A missing stamp on a piece made before the codes began, or after the chip replaced them, is expected.

Four formats

Collectors' references describe the formats below. The codes in the table illustrate the formats only and describe no piece we hold: the first three are the references' own examples, and CA4176 is our illustration of the last format. The letters name a workshop: CA, for example, is a Spanish code, and SD has been used in both France and the United States, so a "Made in" stamp and a workshop code are read together.

From 2021

During 2021 Louis Vuitton began replacing the stamped codes with a chip embedded in the piece, and collectors' guides report that the chip can be read only by the house's own staff. Louis Vuitton has not published where the chip sits. A piece made after the change will usually carry no date code, and some made during the change carry both.

Condition on our scale

Every piece we offer carries one grade, read three ways: our own words, the letter used in Japan and the nearest term on the scale collectors use elsewhere. The letter is where we start; the grade is set only after every photograph has been read, and every mark is named. The three scales are explained in full on our grading and condition page.

The grade sentence

Our condition notes open with one sentence in a fixed form, "Grade A in Japan:", followed by what the wear actually is. A second line covers function or what is included, and anything not shown in the photographs is said plainly. A Speedy with even honey Vachetta, a clean lining and light rubbing at two base corners might read "Grade A in Japan: light rubbing to two base corners; Vachetta evenly darkened." The same bag with a cracked handle edge would be graded lower and the crack named.

What lowers a grade on Louis Vuitton

On canvas bags, the marks that move a grade are worn base corners, cracks where the canvas folds at the handle tabs, a sticky or peeling interior on coated linings, and Vachetta that is darkened unevenly or stained by water. On Epi, look at worn dye on edges; on Vernis, at colour transfer and yellowing. A piece is never graded better than its photographs show.

Reading a piece in the hand

No single detail settles whether a piece is right. What a careful reader does is check that every detail agrees with every other: the pattern with the period, the stamp with the workshop, the hardware with the model, the wear with the age.

Heat stamp and lettering

The "Louis Vuitton Paris" heat stamp should be thin and crisp, with a round O and close-set Ts. Colour bleeding around gold lettering is a warning. Grainier leathers stamp less sharply, so lettering is read with the material in mind.

Hardware, lock and keys

Hardware should be solid metal and usually carries the house name. A padlock bears the LV initials and "Louis Vuitton Paris" on one face, with a number on the base that matches its keys. A worn bag with a perfect lock may have had its lock replaced; a lost lock is common and is no sign of anything amiss.

Lining and stitching

The Speedy's original lining is a honey-brown cotton canvas. Stitch counts and colours vary by model and period, so they are compared with a known example of the same model and year rather than with a rule of thumb.

Keeping it well

Louis Vuitton's own care notes are short and consistent, and they suit a collection as well as daily use.

Canvas

Coated canvas cleans with a damp cloth and a little soapy water. Mink oil, saddle soap, leather lotions and alcohol, including hand sanitiser, are to be kept away from it. Pale canvases such as Damier Azur are the most prone to colour transfer from denim and dyed leather.

Natural leather

Do not treat Vachetta. Let it darken, blot water at once and leave early stains to soften into the patina. Keep Vernis away from print and dyed fabrics and out of strong sunlight.

Storage

Store a bag in its felt dust bag in a ventilated room, not over-filled and not in a closed box or near heat, which dries the materials. Fuller advice on sticky linings and old Vachetta is in our guide to caring for vintage Louis Vuitton.

Eleven chapters of the Atlas

Eleven chapters take the families and subjects above further, one to a page, each with the pieces we hold today.

Where the record differs

Even the house's own pages do not always agree, and a careful reader should know where.

  • Asnières. Louis Vuitton's history gives 1859 for the workshop; its account of the site dates the purchase of the land to 1859 and the building of the workshops to 1860, so either year can be met in print.
  • The flat trunk. Christie's and the trade press date the flat-topped trunk to 1858; the house's timeline says around 1860.
  • The lock. The house's heritage timeline places the multi-tumbler patent a year after the 1888 Damier; another history gives 1866.
  • The Keepall. The house timeline says the 1930s, as the Tientout; a Louis Vuitton film and other accounts say 1924; both dates are cited.
  • The Monogram Speedy. The house dates the Monogram city Speedy to 1959; another account says Monogram followed a year after 1930.
  • The first date codes. One reference says most bags carry a code from 1980; another dates the first codes to 1982.

Writing worth the time

Seen elsewhere

Questions collectors ask

How can I tell when my Louis Vuitton bag was made?

Find the date code, usually on a leather tab inside a pocket or where a handle meets the body, and read it against the format of its period. Then check that the pattern, the model and the hardware belong to the same years. Pieces made before the early 1980s, and most made since 2021, carry no code.

Does a date code prove the piece is genuine?

No. A code records a workshop and a period, and many pieces share each code. Copies often carry codes too. It is one detail to agree with all the others.

Why does my Vachetta look darker than a new bag's?

Because it is meant to. Vachetta is untreated cowhide that darkens to honey with handling and light. Even colour across the bag is a good sign; patches or a pink tint are worth asking about.

What does Grade AB mean on a Louis Vuitton piece?

Good condition with light signs of use: some rubbing, light marks or a darkened handle, each named in the condition note. It sits between A, with no noticeable marks, and B, with visible use.

Can you find a particular model or year for me?

Yes. Send us the model, size, canvas and period you have in mind, or a link to a piece you have seen in Japan, through a private request below.

Further reading

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