Eco-Designed Windows of the Louis Vuitton Stores : Behind the Scenes
“Let’s turn the street into a cheerful place,” wrote Gaston-Louis Vuitton in 1925. A prodigious vector for communication combining adventure and imagination, the art of window design is a savoir-faire that is intimately linked to the history and culture of Louis Vuitton.
Season after season, the Louis Vuitton Visual Image Studio and Environment teams collaborate to bring to life the windows of our some 460 stores throughout the world and to reduce their ecological impact, an eco-design process that has been integrated into the Louis Vuitton Sustainable Development approach, Our Committed Journey. For the unveiling of this year’s holidays windows, Faye, Laurence and Emmanuel describe how their teams mutually inspire each other to explore the circular creativity of Louis Vuitton, designing new paths that are both creative and responsible in order to help preserve our natural resources.
“Eco-design questions the way we approach a subject and how we collaborate. It is a new approach that stimulates research and innovation in terms of materials, crafting techniques and transports. We never know what we are going to develop!” enthusiastically emphasizes Laurence, Purchasing and Production Manager at the Visual Image Studio.
“We imagined crystal trees that are born from the same wood as our iconic trunks. Inspired by the festive lights of winter landscapes, we added snow and coloured lights to our white sculptures, imbuing them with sparkle and whimsy,” describes Faye, Director of the Visual Image Studio. “It was of paramount importance that this window, which celebrates nature should also have sustainability woven into the creative from the outset,” she adds. Recyclable materials, a design that optimizes reuse potential, and nearby production sites: reducing the impact of our windows is a global consideration taken into account at every step of the life cycle of each component.
“My role is to advise the teams of Faye and Laurence so that the chosen materials and the selected crafting modes and transportation have the lowest possible environmental impact, and that the elements used in the window have a second life,” states Emmanuel, Environmental Project Manager. “That can include performing recyclability assessments or environmental impact analyses, or by establishing an eco-material monitoring. The point is to continue improving our knowledge, spreading inspiration, and challenging for the best choices with regard to the environment,” he explains. Laurence fully shares this objective: “Eco-design changes our daily work, but we are all heading in the same direction.”