All Who Wander

To celebrate a decade of Louis Vuitton's Objets Nomades collection. Jesse Dorris heads to Milan for a sit-down with one of the house's biggest collaborators.

Around 1835, the impulse to travel in search of luxury wares hit a teenage Louis Vuitton, prompting him to walk nearly 300 miles from Anchay, the small hamlet in eastern France where he was born, to Paris. There, in the glamorous capital, Vuitton launched what would become a global empire with a series of travel trunks that remain covetable to this day.

A decade ago, a similar impetus fueled the launch of Louis Vuitton Objets Nomades, a collection of limited-edition furniture and objects made in collaboration with artists around the globe. From Tokyo design firm Nendo came an LED lamp with a leather shade, perforated to mimic LV's beloved checkered Damier pattern. Spanish architect and designer Patricia Urquiola offered a series of stools and a leather-and-gold swing chair. There was even a hammock inspired by the original LV trunk bed, courtesy of Swiss firm Atelier Oï. But the star of the collection was a hanging travel cabinet made of recycled leather from the Vuitton workshop. Suspended on a hook and concealing three shelves, the collapsible cabinet was part mod piñata, part tropical fantasia, part chrysalis. It stole the show.