Louis Vuitton Travels Back to 1920s Parisian Art Deco With Its Objets Nomades this Milan Design Week

In the 1920s, Gaston-Louis Vuitton, grandson of the brand's founder, did something that very few luxury house heirs had done before. He turned the Maison into a cultural institution. An aesthete and passionate collector, he brought artists, illustrators, and artisans into the fold, building an archive that today comprises approximately 200,000 documents and 45,000 pieces. At the center of that vision stood Pierre Legrain, one of the defining figures of Parisian Art Deco, whose illustrations, book bindings, and furniture designs became the visual grammar of a new era.

This Milan Design Week, Louis Vuitton returned to Palazzo Serbelloni and made that era the subject of its exhibition. Occupying the entire main floor and courtyard of the historic palace on Corso Venezia, the Maison built a journey through six narrative niches, moving from train travel to book culture.  From early women's handbags to the living room of a 1920s Parisian aesthete. Archive and contemporary design, memory and experimentation, Pierre Legrain and Estudio Campana in the same room.

Louis Vuitton Objets Nomades: A Journey Through Six Niches

The Exhibition begins before you reach the first niche. Enter through a room conceived as a train carriage, with a divided interior establishing the connection between Gaston-Louis Vuitton and Legrain. At its center sits the 1921 dressing table. The first piece of furniture Gaston Vuitton ever commissioned from Legrain. Now reissued with a restoration, preserving its original colors and proportions. It is the anchor of everything that follows.

From there, The Exhibition moves through the quintessential journey of the era. The first two niches present trunks and small luggage designed for train cabins, featuring the chequered check. The first graphic motif Louis Vuitton created as a response to counterfeiting and the direct precursor to the Maison's visual identity. A third niche follows with Legrain's original illustrations for the Maison's catalogs, where drawing became the product's primary storytelling device. A fourth opens into the culture of books and writing: Legrain, also a bookbinder, developed symbols and identifying codes for private collections, transforming volumes into personal objects. A passion he shared with Gaston Vuitton, who founded three bibliophile societies in Paris and installed a writing corner in his store on the Champs-Élysées.

The fifth niche introduces elegance: Legrain's designs alongside the first women's handbags from the late 1920s, the first tortoiseshell creations conceived as one-of-a-kind pieces, and bottles representing the Maison's first true artistic collaboration. A dedicated space along the way celebrates Legrain's book covers across screens, trays, tablecloths, rugs, plates, and armchairs.

Where Archive Meets Contemporary Design

The final room opens into a living room. The tone shifts. References to Fortunato Depero and his Futurist language appear in prints and patterns inspired by his graphic research. Fantastical animals, bold geometry, art applied to everyday life. New for 2026, coffee tables by French designer Franck Genser in black Zimbabwe marble and hazelnut wood sit alongside the most spectacular pieces in the Objets Nomades collection.

The Cocoon armchair by Estudio Campana, launched in 2015, returns this year in a futuristic iridescent fabric. One that recalls the glass façade of the new Maison Louis Vuitton Sanlitun in Beijing. The foosball table, also by Estudio Campana, arrives in a new aquamarine version. Hand-painted mermaids with Swarovski crystal eyes. An inlaid mother-of-pearl playing surface. Scaled leather legs crafted from exotic hide scraps. Priced at €285,000, it is a one-of-a-kind piece in every sense. The Kaléidoscope cabinet completes the picture. An aquamarine composition of over 500 three-dimensional facets of reclaimed exotic leather, hypnotic and deeply considered.

Outside, the courtyard of Palazzo Serbelloni comes alive with a large-scale installation inspired by Legrain's illustration for the leather binding of Album de 96 dessins et maquettes. Designed and painted by seven scenography students from the Brera Academy. The first collaboration between Louis Vuitton and the institution. Live painting sessions activated the courtyard throughout the week, with the students set to continue developing exhibition proposals for upcoming Milan Design Weeks.

Louis Vuitton Objets Nomades

📅 MDW -April 20 to 26, 2026

📍 Palazzo Serbelloni, Corso Venezia 16, Milan

🛋️ Objets Nomades collection on view, select pieces available for sale

🌐 Louis Vuitton

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