Louis Vuitton’s Bejeweled Throwback, Ellsworth Kelly at 100 and More
Photo: Photography by F. Martin Ramin | Prop styling by Tanya Moskowitz By Jenny Hartman, Cara Gibbs, Natalia Rachlin, Laura Casey , Elisa Lipsky-Karasz and WSJ. Magazine editors April 19, 2023 8:30 am ET Fantastic Voyage A new piece from the Louis Vuitton high jewelry collection highlights the pioneering spirit of the brand’s eponymous founder, who left home at the age of 14, found his way to Paris on foot and began making luggage at a time when leisure travel was just taking off. Channeling Vuitton’s very first flat trunk, a hard case introduced in the 1850s, the vibrant polychrome necklace pictured here features subtle portmanteau motifs throughout. A 20.29-carat cushion-cut yellow sapphire from Sri Lanka, s
Photo: Photography by F. Martin Ramin | Prop styling by Tanya Moskowitz
By
Jenny Hartman,
Cara Gibbs,
Natalia Rachlin,
WSJ. Magazine editors
Fantastic Voyage
A new piece from the Louis Vuitton high jewelry collection highlights the pioneering spirit of the brand’s eponymous founder, who left home at the age of 14, found his way to Paris on foot and began making luggage at a time when leisure travel was just taking off. Channeling Vuitton’s very first flat trunk, a hard case introduced in the 1850s, the vibrant polychrome necklace pictured here features subtle portmanteau motifs throughout. A 20.29-carat cushion-cut yellow sapphire from Sri Lanka, suspended from a baguette diamond–set V, nods to the trunk’s shape and metal corners, while the diamonds nestled between each candy-colored tourmaline allude to the original’s metal studs. —Jenny Hartman
Photo: Ron Amstutz, Courtesy of Glenstone Museum
True Colors
A leafy beanstalk silhouette, a spectrum of colored boxes and a totemic red-wood pillar: These wildly different creations are all by a single artist, Ellsworth Kelly. To mark Kelly’s 100th birthday (he died in 2015), Maryland’s Glenstone Museum will put the breadth of his seven-decade career on display in May. Ellsworth Kelly at 100 will feature nearly 70 works, many, such as Blue Relief with Black (2011, above), from Glenstone’s own collection, aswell as others from museums like the Centre Pompidou and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Little-seen pieces include Kelly’s massive installation for Yellow Curve, a floor-mounted painting that hasn’t been shown since its 1990 debut. After closing in March 2024, the exhibition will go to Paris’s Fondation Louis Vuitton and then to the Fire Station in Doha, Qatar. Glenstone co-founder Emily Rales recalls spending time with Kelly late in his life, seeing him at dinner parties where he’d start sketching the flower arrangements on the table or whatever else caught his eye: “He had this childlike wonder at age 88 that he brought to everything he did.” —Elisa Lipsky-Karasz
Photo: Courtesy of Hublot
Time Machines
Hublot’s latest collaboration with Takashi Murakami is a series of 13 unique watches featuring the Japanese artist’s sig-nature smiley-face flower. Each comes in its own colorway and is paired with a matching NFT. Hublot Classic Fusion Takashi Murakami watch, $52,600 (including NFT).
Photo: courtesy of Serax
Creative Brief
“This collection is an invitation to play and turn the rules of the game,” says Marni creative director Francesco Risso of the fashion brand’s new porcelain tableware. The 120-piece line, produced with Belgian design house Serax, features a floral motif in a hand-drawn spirit. Midnight Flowers Anemone-Milk plate, available August, $55. —Cara Gibbs
Photo: Philippe Lacombe for Louis Vuitton
Small Wonder
Thanks to retailers like Bonpoint and Petit Bateau, France has long been a source of chicly adorable kids clothes. Now Louis Vuitton is joining the fun with its newborn collection, a wardrobe of collared onesies, scallop-edge dresses, cashmere pajamas, knit booties, earflap bonnets and other tiny staples. The brand’s hallmark blossoms are present throughout, rendered sweetly on buttons, in embroidery or as wing tip–style perforations on leather Mary Janes. Keepsakes include blankets, a teddy bear—even baby’s first Louis Vuitton suitcase, with a sunny yellow lining peeking out from the gray logoed exterior. Louis Vuitton two-pocket coat, $1,400, available at select Louis Vuitton stores.
Photo: COURTESY OF HERMES; COURTESY OF PACO RABANNE; COURTESY OF TOHUM; COURTESY OF RALPH LAUREN; Courtesy of BOTTEGA VENETA
Mixed Media
Leather accents give gold and silver earrings an unexpected twist. From left: Hermès, $750; Paco Rabanne, $390; Tohum, $235; Ralph Lauren Collection, $495; Bottega Veneta, $700.
Photo: Eric Poitevin
Silver Jubilee
Donald Judd’s iconic minimalism meets centuries-old European craftsmanship this spring, as French heritage brand Puiforcat introduces a series of the late American artist’s tableware designs, cast in sterling silver. Originally conceived in 1989 but never successfully produced beyond some initial prototypes, the eight-piece dinner-service set—which includes six sizes of plates, a serving bowl and cups (shown)—captures Judd’s signature: deceptively simple constructions that require great technical skill to manufacture. “Solid silver emits a distinctive vibration, particularly suited to the stripped-down character of Judd’s forms,” says Alexis Fabry, deputy artistic director, alongside Charlotte Macaux Perelman, of Hermès Maison. (Hermès has owned Puiforcat since the 1990s.) Developed in close collaboration with the Judd Foundation and the artist’s son, Flavin Judd, the collection is based on original sketches that revealed precise cylindrical forms intersected by thin perpendicular planes at 90-degree angles. The designs required great effort from Puiforcat’s expert silversmiths, who used a brazing molten-filler technique so no welding points are visible. The service, says Perelman, “is quite in keeping with Puiforcat’s legacy: working with the greatest creators of our time, without ever abandoning the goal of functionality.” From $6,900; available in May. —Natalia Rachlin
Novelist Ralph Ellison’s photography, clockwise from top left: a 1972 shot of strawberries; a 1940s portrait of a child in New York City; a 1972 still life; a 1940s photo of young people in New York City; a 1944 portrait of Fanny McConnell, who later married Ellison.
Photo: COURTESY OF THE RALPH AND FANNY ELLISON CHARITABLE TRUST (5)
Depth of Field
Best known for his 1952 novel, Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison believed in cultivating a “renaissance man” skill set: In addition to being a writer, he was also an amateur horticulturist, musician and photographer. The last of these talents comes into focus in the new monograph Ralph Ellison: Photographer. Covering Ellison’s work from the 1940s until his death in 1994, the volume includes images from his brief professional photography career, which he pursued while completing Invisible Man, as well as from his mostly unseen personal work. In his photos, as in his writing, “Ellison consistently sought new ways of understanding and representing Black life and what it means to define oneself as American,” notes Gordon Parks Foundation executive director Peter W. Kunhardt Jr. in the book’s foreword. $60. —Laura Casey
Photo: COURTESY OF LOEWE, COURTESY OF ISABEL MARANT, COURTESY OF GUCCI X ADIDAS, COURTESY OF CHANEL, courtesy of ferrari, COURTESY OF GIVENCHY, COURTESY OF BREITLING, courtesy of chloe
Fast Times
Formula 1–inspired fashions lean into a streamlined silhouette of sporty reds and sleek blacks. Clockwise from top: Loewe sneakers, $690; Isabel Marant pants, $2,795; Adidas x Gucci gloves, $1,350; Chanel sunglasses, $535; Ferrari jacket; Givenchy bag, $1,690; Breitling watch, $8,000.
The Wall Street Journal is not compensated by retailers listed in its articles as outlets for products. Listed retailers frequently are not the sole retail outlets.
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