Article from the LA Times.
Exhibit's shop for pricey handbags will mark the intersection of culture and commerce.By DIANE HAITHMAN August 9, 2007




In a move that seems sure to offend art world purists, the downtown Museum of Contemporary Art will merge the worlds of art and commerce this fall by including a fully operational Louis Vuitton boutique as part of a retrospective of the work of Japanese artist Takashi Murakami.

Highlighting Murakami's longtime professional association with the luxury goods label, the boutique will offer limited-edition handbags and small leather goods featuring Murakami designs. The estimated prices of the bags, ranging from $875 to $920, represent about a $300 markup over the $575 to $665 that consumers would pay for the same line without the Murakami designs at the Vuitton store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills.

Unlike the traditional gift shop or museum store outside the exhibition area, or a shop set up for a traveling exhibition such as the 2005 King Tut show at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Vuitton shop will be situated approximately in the middle of MOCA's Geffen Contemporary space. It will be among about 20 rooms featuring paintings, sculpture and animation.

"People have touched base with the play between the commercial arena and high art, but this is a little more confrontational," MOCA Chief Curator Paul Schimmel, who organized the show, said Wednesday.


Although MOCA will receive no profit from the boutique's sales and no rental fee for the space, the unorthodox plan raises questions about whether a nonprofit museum tarnishes its reputation by peddling high-end handbags in its hallowed halls.

Gail Andrews, director of the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama and president of the Assn. of Art Museum Directors, said she had conversations with MOCA leaders about their concept of including such a boutique during the planning stages of the Murakami exhibition, which will open Oct. 29 and run through Feb. 11.

"They are doing something that contemporary museums do, pushing the boundaries," Andrews said.

"They are going to have to work very hard to get the curatorial concept across to the visitor so they do not perceive a conflict of interest. That's going to really be at the heart of this."

Selma Holo, director of USC's Fisher Gallery, said that MOCA's decision is the next step in an apparent trend.

"What's happening in museums is that the lines between commerce and pure art are increasingly blurred," she said. "So with respect to the Murakami show and the Vuitton shop, one has to wonder whether it is meant as a celebration of the trend, a critique of the trend or a satire?"

Referring to the pioneering 20th century artist who labeled a urinal a work of art, Holo said, "Ever since Duchamp, we have trusted the artist to determine what art is. Is a latrine in a gallery any less valid than a store?

"At the very least," she added, "it's going to be fun."

MOCA Director Jeremy Strick said the idea of a boutique is in keeping with the 45-year-old Murakami's commitment to breaking down the boundaries between low and high art.

The acclaimed multimedia artist, who has been credited as the progenitor of the art movement called Superflat -- influenced by pop culture, anime and graphic design -- has his own company, Kaikai Kiki, which mass-produces Murakami-designed products at reasonable prices and serves as a management organization for other artists.


"Murakami is an artist who is perhaps the most significant and influential artist to have emerged from Asia in the last half-century," Strick said. "And one of the key elements of his work is the way in which he melds commercial practice and fine art and really makes no distinction between the two.

"When Paul Schimmel invited Louis Vuitton to participate in this way, he really felt that the act of buying, the way one approaches the objects when they are consumable within the museum environment, spoke to the unusual nature of his work."

"We really didn't need a faux boutique," Schimmel said. "I felt that the experience could only be achieved by having an operational one, rather than a fixed, embalmed replication. The fact that there is a new product that is only available here is very dynamic and represents that kind of relationship between the viewer and the consumer."

Couldn't the concept of commerce vs. art be illustrated with less pricey goods? Schimmel said that he had also approached the artist about doing a Kaikai Kiki boutique but that the company wasn't interested in participating: "They said it was too much trouble."

As is customary with artists who also create mass-market objects, another room in the Geffen will contain 350 items produced by the Kaikai Kiki company, although those will not be for sale. Other Kaikai Kiki products will be available for purchase in the gift shop. However, Schimmel contended that the relationship with Vuitton has been integral to Murakami's career.

"For Takashi, it has something to do with his expanding self-vision," Schimmel said. "Every time he collaborates with a kind of strong brand identity, it seems to morph his own identity into something else."

Schimmel said MOCA is leaving pricing of the products and the operation of the boutique to Vuitton -- including making sure there are enough handbags and leather goods to last through the run of the show.

"The only request we made is that they operate and have it functional throughout the exhibition, that we do not have this sort of 'dead booth,' " he said.

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diane.haithman@latimes.com

Article from the Miami Herald
By TIM JOHNSON McClatchy News Service, August 4, 2007


The demand for 'hyper luxury' in Japan, a nation that consumes an astounding 40 percent to 45 percent of the world's production of luxury goods, is exploding.
TOKYO--Japan's love affair with luxury goods thrives, to the point that some wealthy consumers now view $1,500 handbags as run-of-the-mill middle-class commodities. After all, even young women on Tokyo's subways tote Louis Vuitton handbags.

The conformist society and rising wealth that shaped a luxury binge here decades ago have evolved.

Newly wealthy Japanese display a streak of individuality, and major luxury retailers are scrambling to satisfy their yen for ''super luxury'' and to turn their stores into more exotic destinations.

Flagship Gucci and Chanel stores in the Ginza fashion district have added restaurants and bistros with marquee chefs. Italian leather goods maker Furla maintains a yoga studio, and other marketers have installed cocktail lounges. Top brands now offer ''hyper luxury'' products, sold in hidden VIP rooms or displayed in exclusive members-only clubs.



ALL THE FRILLS
Luxury boutiques saturate Japan, a nation that consumes an astounding 40 percent to 45 percent of the world's production of goods that fall in the luxury category, from scarves and jewel-studded watches to perfumes and fine Italian and French wallets.

''The breadth and diversity of luxury brands here is incomparable to anywhere else,'' said W. David Marx, a Japanese consumer-market analyst at Diamond Agency, an advertising company.

So as the luster wears from what was once luxurious, and the myth of widespread economic equality in Japan begins to shatter, retailers increasingly cater to a new class of super-rich who want to show off rather than conform.

Mio Shimamura, a marketing director for Harry Winston, the high-end jeweler to Hollywood stars, greeted a visitor in a hidden VIP room designed for wealthy male customers in Tokyo's tony midtown. Doors swished shut electronically. A magnum of champagne stood ready. Dominican cigars beckoned from the humidor.

''The Japanese customer wants to buy something really, really luxurious,'' she began. ``They want to be treated like a celebrity. That's the next level of luxury in Japan.''

An attendant wearing a white glove displayed a jewel-encrusted watch at a relative bargain price of $50,000. Some items in the store sell for more than $1 million.

High-end retailers such as Harry Winston pamper customers even after the sale.

'Many of the watch companies will take a small bunch of VIP customers to Europe. The trips include sessions on the craft of watchmaking so that customers gain the feeling that, `I'm more of a connoisseur,' '' said Radha Chadha, a coauthor of The Cult of the Luxury Brand, a book about Asian purchasing habits.

In Tokyo districts such as Omotesando, shoppers come upon store after store of the world's most widely known luxury products.

At the flagship Gucci emporium in Ginza, a greeter bows to all shoppers who stroll in, handing each a glossy directory in the trademark brown and gold of the Italian design house. On the fourth floor, the directory notes, the new Gucci Cafe can add ``a more luxurious element to your overall shopping experience.''

Indeed, a $7.50 cappuccino in the cafe comes with a meticulous sprinkling of cocoa powder on the foam in the shape of the distinctive Gucci logo.


BIGGER AND BETTER
Until early this decade, most designer brands displayed their wares in special boutiques within department stores. Then they began to break out into bigger and bigger flagship stores, some designed by world-renowned architects and costing more than $100 million. The Louis Vuitton flagship in Omotesando is built to resemble a shimmering version of one of the company's trademark traveling trunks.


A rumpled reporter couldn't cadge an invitation to the store's special top floor.

Little wonder: It's a members-only club, Celux. You must be recommended by a current member and pay an annual fee to join.

''You're greeted when you enter,'' said Nicole Fall, a trend consultant at Bespoke Tokyo who's visited the club. ``They have an ever-revolving display of new goods. . . . They will curate a selection of clothes and accessories for their VIP clientele.''

While VIP salons are common in some world capitals, Japan is a bit different.

''The size and scale of the VIP rooms is much bigger in Japan,'' Chadha said. ``They are designed in a way that no one knows they are there.''

Over-the-top luxury is often on display.

Walk into the high-end Restir boutique, which has the look of a dark nightclub, and you see a single display case showing a black body sheath containing scores of shimmering crystals. Price tag: about $30,000.

Even as luxury retailers cater to the super rich, many also extend downstream, keeping office women clutching designer bags.

''This is a new line, and it's called Never Full,'' Yukiko Sasaki, a 29-year-old public relations specialist, said of her big Louis Vuitton shoulder bag as she strolled through Ginza. ``I just bought it.''

A few luxury retailers -- particularly Louis Vuitton, with 48 stores spread across Japan -- have managed a transition to sustained growth, catering to the super-rich with new VIP rooms and specialized lines of products while appealing to the masses.

Flipping through fashion magazines, with photos of young women in casual clothes and high-end purses, analyst Marx said: ``These Louis Vuitton products are mass products like Gap or Banana Republic products would be in the United States.''

Article from the New York Times
BAGGAGE Annie Leibovitz’s portrait, part of a new advertising campaign.

By ERIC WILSON
Published: July 26, 2007 SO many fashion ads feature celebrities now that it isn’t even faintly jarring to flip through the August issue of Vogue and see Scarlett Johansson lying on her belly with a Louis Vuitton bag over her shoulder and 10 pages later find her flat on her back, her cascading blond hair spread to promote L’Oréal Superior Preference shade No. 10NB.

That said, what is a reader to make of a Vuitton ad, coming in the big September books, that stars Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the last president of the Soviet Union? A decade ago, Mr. Gorbachev’s appearance in a Pizza Hut commercial was generally greeted as a low point in his career.

The Vuitton ad, however, is part of a campaign to emphasize the company’s heritage in luggage and travel accessories. Photographed by Annie Leibovitz, the ads include other celebrities using Vuitton bags: Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf cuddling in a hotel room, their bags not yet unpacked; Catherine Deneuve resting on a trunk in front of a steaming locomotive; and Mr. Gorbachev in the back of a car with a duffel bag on the seat next to him. Of the group, Mr. Gorbachev appears the least comfortable. He is holding on to a door handle, as if the bag contained polonium 210.

It seems unlikely he will be approached by L’Oréal.

THE August issue of Harper’s Bazaar, meanwhile, includes fashion illustrations by Julius Preite of “The Simpsons,” with a cartoon version of Glenda Bailey, the editor, in place of her usual portrait. And now on Style.com, it is Candy Pratts Price, the site’s executive fashion director, who appears more animated than usual.

In a feature called “CandyCast,” Ms. Price will dispense thoughts on fashion in the form of an avatar, illustrated by Bruno Frisoni, the creative director of Roger Vivier. She looks skinnier than a paper clip.

“Take a look at gray!” she says in the first installment, which sounds a tad like a spoof of Diana Vreeland. “Always chic, always right, and always, always mandatory!”

Ms. Price said she hopes to convey a lighter tone in the future.

“It will definitely be related to fashion, because that is what I do for a living,” she said. “I am not a doctor.”