HISTORY OF LOUIS VUITTON IN 4 MINUTES

Louis Vuitton was a French entrepreneur and designer who founded the iconic fashion house that carries his name. The brand which is today one of the world's leading international fashion houses, operates in 50 countries with more than 460 stores worldwide. (1837) Vuitton was taken in as an apprentice in the workshop of a successful box-maker and packer (Monsieur Marechal). It took Vuitton only a few years to stake out a reputation amongst Paris' elites as one of the city's premier box-maker. (December 2) In 1852, (17 years after Vuitton arrived in Paris) Napoleon Bonaparte became the Emperor of the France. Napoleon’s wife, the Empress of France (Eugenie de Montijo) hired Vuitton as her personal box-maker. She provided a gateway for Vuitton to a class of elite and royal clientele. (1858) Four years after opening his own shop Vuitton introduced his flat-topped trunks with trianon canvas, making them lightweight and airtight. Before the introduction of Vuitton's trunks, rounded-top trunks were used to promote water runoff, and could not be stacked. It was Vuitton's canvas flat trunk that allowed the ability to stack them on top of another for ease of travel. In 1870, Vuitton's business was stopped by the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, which ended with the collapse of the French Empire. (January 28, 1871), Vuitton returned a year later to (Asnieres) find the village in ruins, his equipment stolen and his factory destroyed. The year after (1872), Vuitton introduced a new trunk design featuring beige canvas and red stripes. The new design appealed to Paris' new elite and cemented Louis Vuitton as a luxury brand. (1876) To protect against the replica of his luggage, Vuitton changed the Trianon design to a beige and brown striped design. A decade later (1885) Louis Vuitton opened his first branch internally, in Oxford Street, London. A year after (1886) Georges Vuitton revolutionized luggage as they adopted a single lock system with two spring buckles, this incredibly secure lock design is still in use today. Two years later (1888) Vuitton created the Damier Canvas pattern, which bore a logo that reads "L. Vuitton registered trademark" in a further attempt to deter replicas. Shortly after (1892), Louis Vuitton died, and the company's management passed to his son. In 1896, the company launched the signature Monogram Canva. Its graphic symbols, including quatrefoils, flowers and the LV monogram, were based on the trend of using Japanese designs in the late Victorian era. In 1901, the Louis Vuitton Company introduced the Steamer Bag, a smaller piece of luggage designed to be kept inside Vuitton luggage trunks. In 1913, the Louis Vuitton Building opened on the Champs-Elysees. It was the largest travel-goods store in the world at the time. 1930 was a big year unveiling both the Keepall bag and the Speedy bag, both bags designed as everyday travel bags. Followed by the (Nu-Ay) Noe bag two years after (1932), this bag was originally made for wine merchants to transport bottles of champagne. The Alma bag was designed for Coco Chanel in 1925, but Vuitton was allowed to sell this design to the public a decade later (1934). In 1936 Georges Vuitton died, and his son, Gaston-Louis Vuitton, assumed control of the company. (1945) During World War II, Louis Vuitton collaborated with the Nazis during the German occupation of France. The Vuitton family actively aided the puppet government (Marshal Philippe Pétain) and increased their wealth from their business affairs with the Germans. (1987) 4 decades later saw the creation of LVMH. Leading manufacturers of champagne and cognac, merged with Louis Vuitton to form the luxury goods conglomerate now worth over $180B To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Monogram canvas (1996), Louis Vuitton invited select designers to create unique luggage pieces that where exhibited across the world. (2003) In the early 2000’s was the introduction of the multicoloured monogram made popular by pop icons like Paris Hilton. (2004) A year later Louis Vuitton celebrated its 150 year anniversary (2007) Three years after Louis Vuitton released the Neverful, this large sturdy handbag became the brands best selling bag of all time Louis Vuitton would go on to collaborate with many other brands and designers over the coming years, including Marc Jacobs (2009), Kanye West (2009) and Supreme (2017) (2019) Today Louis Vuitton is one of the most valuable brands in the world valued at around $40b with yearly sales of over $15b SHOW LESS