October 7, 2025 |
A new coffee table tome is coming for your library, your living room and your collection (or your Louis Vuitton trunk, naturally). Published by Assouline, From Louis To Vuitton is the maisons’ latest heavyweight page-turner, a comprehensive, image-stuffed, lavishly bound portal into all things Louis, from humble house founded by a 33-year-old trunk maker to global fashion phenomena.
Our guide is award-winning Franco-Swiss writer and filmmaker Arthur Dreyfus – also the author of Defining Dresses: A Century of Fashion (2015) –, with a foreword by Pietro Beccari, president and CEO of Louis Vuitton. The book itself is a beauty: lemon-yellow cover, Damier slipcase and weighing in at 406 pages peppered with 320 images that stretch from dusty archives to glossy campaign shots. If you’re wondering how to tackle it, here’s the trick – you don’t have to. It’s designed to be read any way you like. Open it at ‘Architecture’, ‘Monogram’, ‘Canvas’ or ‘Leather(s)’ (there are 54 themes in total, a wink to the maison’s birth year, 1854. That year, in the Parisian suburb of Asnières, Louis Vuitton established his first workshop alongside his family home), and off you go.
The story begins with Monsieur Vuitton himself, who left his village, Anchay, at just 14 and walked nearly 300 miles to Paris. There, he apprenticed with renowned trunk maker Romain Maréchal, refining his craft and cultivating the precision and savoir-faire that would define his career. By 1854, Louis Vuitton opened his first workshop in Rue Neuve-des-Capucines. Within just a few decades, the maison’s patented flat-top canvas trunks had revolutionised travel and earned international renown.
From there, From Louis To Vuitton traces the maison’s radical evolution – from Asnières to the Champs-Élysées, from hand-sewn leather goods to global fashion shows – while also presenting its boutiques as architectural marvels. Each store, whether in Paris, Tokyo, or Shanghai, serves as a complete world of the house’s métiers: men’s and women’s fashion, leather goods, accessories, watches, jewellery and fragrances.
The narrative also celebrates the creative visionaries who have left their mark on the maison: Marc Jacobs (1997-2014), who brought ready-to-wear to Louis Vuitton; Nicolas Ghesquière (womenswear since 2013), whose futuristic silhouettes redefine the female wardrobe; Virgil Abloh, whose revolutionary tenure as artistic director of menswear (2018-2021) reshaped fashion culture; and most recently Pharrell Williams (menswear since 2023), who continues to expand Louis Vuitton’s global resonance.
From Louis To Vuitton also reflects the house’s passion for travel and sport. Whether on land, at sea, or in the air, Louis Vuitton has long embodied the romance of movement, from crafting custom trunks for explorers to designing trophies for the America’s Cup and Formula 1. On top of that, the tome explores Louis Vuitton’s worldwide exhibitions, its innovative “Committed Journey” program addressing climate responsibility and its unique ability to blend tradition with future-facing design.
For the true collectors out there, Louis Vuitton has also created a limited-run Damier trunk to house the tome. Available in very minimal quantities, the trunk invites a lucky few to experience From Louis To Vuitton in a more immersive way, where craftsmanship meets storytelling, and where the book itself becomes a collectible worthy of the maison’s hefty heritage.
From Louis To Vuitton will be available November 3, in French, English, Chinese and Japanese. Place it on your table, lose yourself in its pages, or just let guests casually clock it while you’re pouring coffee. Either way, it’s a history book that will keep you engaged from its bold casing design to its compelling contents. Pre-order your copy here.
Photography courtesy of Assouline.
