Ever wonder how the iconic Louis Vuitton monogram came to be? Esquire went to Paris to find out for the new series “Iconic”.
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00:00In the early days, the Malle Courrier was covered in a simple striped canvas like this one that sits today in the family home in Agnès Chaussen.
00:10The house, built in 1854 as the business expanded, sits right beside the original workshops, opened in 1859,
00:17where the cases are still made, just as they've always been, from scratch, entirely by hand.
00:24That early striped pattern was so popular that competitors soon took note, and copied it.
00:29It prompted the house quickly to develop new patterns, and then protect them vigorously with registered trademarks.
00:36The legendary monogram pattern, first introduced in 1896, was a game-changer.
00:41It combined stylized flower motifs from Japanese art, hot fad in Paris, with the LV monogram.
00:47It was, and deliberately so, unlike anything else on the market.
00:51It generally boosted the growing power of the Vuitton brand.
00:55In Agnès, you can see the monogram all over the house, on everything from pool cues to coffee tables to vases.
01:00And it's the very same iconic design we see everywhere on clothing and accessories around the world today.
01:05At the airport, on the subway, it's everywhere you look.