8 September 2016

For four years Louis Vuitton has been working with creative people who have the skills to combine the brand’s prestige with contemporary design in order to enrich Objets Nomades, the exclusive collection of travel accessories available through the company’s Made to Order service. The project asks them to try new formal solutions out on traditional objects, adapting them to a nomadic lifestyle without stripping them of their value and originality. A perfect challenge for Marcel Wanders, who at the last Milan Furniture Fair, a few months ago, presented his creation for the line of the French fashion house: Chaise Longue. A seat whose form owes a debt to the iconic Tube Chair designed by Joe Colombo in 1969, but renewed through the use of new materials and the adoption of a more voluptuous style. Thus the model of reference, an offshoot of Radical Design and Pop culture, has become a refined “oasis for relaxation,” as Wanders puts it, a jigsaw puzzle of three very light and strong modules made of carbon fiber, upholstered in soft leather and finished internally in suede. The elements can be combined to create a chaise longue, an armchair or a pouf, but also stacked to facilitate their transport, fixed with the same straps that are used to form the different seats and that run inside tracks which recall the iconic suitcases of the Louis Vuitton tradition.

Tube Chair, Joe Colombo for Flexform, 1969-70.

Marcel Wanders