Louis Vuitton has made trunks for everyone from Empress Eugénie to Elizabeth Taylor. Coco Marett digs through the brand’s archive to learn the secrets of the craft—and a little about the trunks’ famous owners
With budget airlines, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it weekend trips and our growing affinity for sweatpants, travel, for the most part, isn’t as glamorous as it used to be. In the days of voyaging by ship or traversing continents by train, travel was inextricably linked to adventure. To prepare for such epic expeditions, discerning travellers turned to trunk makers like Louis Vuitton.
At just 13 years of age, Louis Vuitton himself set out on foot from his home in the Jura region of France for Paris so he could gain work as an apprentice trunk maker and packer. After making a name for himself working under a renowned trunk maker by the name of Monsieur Marechal, Vuitton branched out and opened his own workshop. A sign out the front of his first atelier read: “Securely packs the most fragile objects. Specialising in packing fashions.”
At a time when all trunks were made with a rounded top, Vuitton revolutionised travel by introducing flat-top rectangular trunks that were easier to stack. He also made them lighter and weatherproof with flexible poplarwood frames and waterproofed canvas sides. The canvas came in various finishes, including solid Trianon grey hemp oil, red-striped cloth, chequered Damier canvas and, of course, the iconic monogram canvas. Remarkably, many of these same materials are still used to make Louis Vuitton’s luggage today.
On the outside the trunks had a uniformity that made them unmistakeably Louis Vuitton. But each opened to reveal something deeply personal and unique about the owner, be it a trunk that transformed into a wardrobe for a fashionista on the move, one that folded out into a bed for an explorer, or a trunk for an aeronaut that could be fixed to the side of the basket of a hot air balloon.
Vuitton got his big break, though, when royalty came calling. Empress Eugénie, the last empress of France, personally commissioned Louis Vuitton to not only make but also pack her luggage, giving the trunk maker her public seal of approval. This kick-started a relationship between Louis Vuitton and public figures that exists to this day and enabled the founder to build a legacy that has outlasted that of Eugénie herself. While the French imperial family was overthrown within Eugénie’s lifetime, Louis Vuitton has gone from strength to strength and today remains a global force in the world of luxury.