Louis Vuitton Visionary Journeys Seoul, the cultural ‘escapade’ at LV The Place Seoul, Shinsegae The Reserve, is presented as an immersive narrative devoted to the luxury goods house’s heritage of travel, craftsmanship, and innovation. Spanning three floors, the scenography has been conceived in collaboration with Shohei Shigematsu-OMA as a progression through themed rooms that trace Louis Vuitton’s evolution from a visionary trunkmaker to a global House of Culture.
The experience begins in the Trunkscape room, where visitors enter a tunnel lined with the Boîte Chapeau (hat box), setting the stage for Louis Vuitton’s pioneering Art of travel. The site-specific installation previews the cultural escapade to follow and leads into the ground floor store. Beyond it, a spiral stair is wrapped in a dynamic LED display, forming a living timeline of craftsmanship while evoking landscapes and motion.
Louis Vuitton Visionary Journeys Seoul continues on the fifth floor with the Origins room, where defining historical moments and evolution of the House are explored in six chapters. The Historical Canvases traces back the evolution of pattern, culminating in the creation of the Monogram canvas in 1896, a code of innovation, identity and artistry. Packing Fashion reveals the intimacy between couture and travel, where custom wardrobes and vanity cases translate elegance into motion. Together, these chapters compose a tableau of invention, a reminder that for Louis Vuitton, every new material or silhouette began as an answer to the call of voyage. Transports introduces the earliest trunks designed for trains, steamships, and automobiles – symbols of a world accelerating into motion. In Expeditions, robust trunks and field gear recall journeys to distant lands, testifying to the endurance of craftsmanship under every climate.
Materials
Supple Monogram Canvas highlights the House’s pioneering materials, from the lightweight Gris Trianon canvas to coated textiles that made travel more practical and poetic. Epi Leather traces the rise of distinctive textures and forms – including Alma, Speedy, and Keepall, historical icons of the House – that transformed utility into timeless style.
A series of Lifestyle rooms celebrate Louis Vuitton’s expansion beyond travel into the art of living with a panorama of objects that express creativity through sound, reading, and ritual. The Watches room showcases the precision of time and the poetry of form.
The Picnic room revisits the elegance of open-air leisure with portable trunks and tableware designed for pleasure and practicality. The Personalisation room has defined Louis Vuitton since its very beginnings, when each trunk was crafted to reflect its owner’s identity through hand-painted initials, distinctive motifs, and bespoke details.
From the start, this tradition transformed every creation into a singular emblem of individuality and the spirit of travel. A nod to the dining room in Asnières, the room is constructed out of personalized trunk faces to form an immersive mosaic.
In a space conceived in the ironwork style of the Asnières workshops, the Workshop room immerses visitors in the creative heart of Louis Vuitton: the world of the artisan. Here, materials become protagonists as supple leathers, polished brass, and coated canvases are displayed alongside patterns and wooden moulds that recall the earliest trunks. Tools of the trade are presented as objects of beauty in their own right, symbols of the precision and patience that underpin every creation. Around them, the scenography evokes the atmosphere of the atelier with an interplay of light and material. Workshop leads into the Testing room, which pays tribute to the machine affectionately named Louise. Symbol of the House’s pursuit of durability and perfection, its quiet choreography illustrates that for Louis Vuitton, craftsmanship is not only artistry but also engineering.
In the Icons room, the evolution of Louis Vuitton’s iconic leather good creations is presented in a kaleidoscopic field of column-like vitrines. Objects within capture the vision of its distinctive Artistic and Creative Directors, each leaving their mark on the House’s legacy: Nicolas Ghesquière, Artistic Director of Women’s Collections, Pharrell Williams, Men’s Creative Director, and previous Artistic Directors Marc Jacobs, Kim Jones, and Virgil Abloh. Icons such as the Speedy, Alma, Noé, Keepall, and Petite Malle appear as milestones in this creative lineage – enduring forms continually renewed as a remix of heritage and contemporary design. In this spirit, the Monogram room offers a comprehensive overview of the iconic canvas, beginning with an entrance that traces its origins of since 1896.
Templates
The main space presents a playful array of forms —created through the ingenuity of Louis Vuitton’s artistic designers—as templates cut out from a floor-to-ceiling Monogram wall. From the Teddy Bear and Book Wallet to the Duck, Soccer Ball, Crab and Nautilus bags, the whimsical shapes highlight the creativity and fun inherent in the Monogram.
Descending the staircase from the fifth to the fourth floor, visitors witness an Atrium where monumental trunk columns composed of Monogram hanji paper are lit from within, creating luminous lanterns suspended from the ceiling.
The Music room unfolds in greater depth in an anechoic-like chamber where custom instrument cases, portable speakers, and DJ boxes are artfully juxtaposed with everyday objects like an iPod cover. The harmony between these elements celebrates the dialogue between tradition and modernity. Through collaborations and finely crafted instruments, music becomes a medium that echoes Louis Vuitton’s enduring rhythm of creativity and innovation.
The Collaboration and Fashion rooms are back-to-back rooms that benefit from everchanging backdrops that convey the diverse creative output and infinite possibilities through the distinct visions of creative directors and artists who collaborated with the House. Artifacts and ready-to wear are displayed – spanning historical collaborations with designs from Marc Jacobs, Kim Jones and Virgil Abloh along with creations of Nicolas Ghesquière and Pharrell Williams, with emphasis on travel and the House’s connection to Korea.
For the Collaboration room, the bags rotate on a carousel as their canvas are projected onto a screen, the image mirrored across a wall of reflective bags creates a fully immersive experience. The Fashion room playfully employs a split-flap display (as used in airports and train stations) exploring the evolution of Louis Vuitton’s collections and fashion shows. Links to Korea can be found in both rooms through for instance the Artycapucines bag designed in collaboration with Park Seo-Bo or Look 1 from the Women’s Prefall 2023 Show staged on Jamsugyo Bridge in Seoul.
Opening Days / Hours:
Mon – Thu: 10:30 – 20:00
Fri – Sun & Public Holidays: 10:30 – 20:30
Address:
LV The Place Seoul, Shinsegae The Reserve
63 Sogong-ro, Jung-gu, Seoul
Reservations: Louis Vuitton Visionary Journey Seoul | Louis Vuitton
See also: Helene Schjerfbeck at the Met
