Objets Nomades: A Stunning Interpretation Of Everyday Items

After presenting the Objets Nomades collection at the Palazzo Serbelloni in Milan at Fuorisalone 2019, Louis Vuitton now has an exhibition in Los Angeles. Chairs, sofas, and shelving are the new pieces that take on magic qualities.

Walking through this luxury exhibition in Los Angeles somehow feels both comfortingly familiar and delightfully unexpected. At their core, the pieces on display are the types of everyday items you’d find in any home–chairs, sofas, and shelving–but each one has been reimagined, creations from innovative minds of designers from all around the world.

The show represents the first partnership between the luxury French fashion brand and Frieze Los Angeles, a platform for modern and contemporary art since 1991. The collaboration may be new, but Louis Vuitton has been commissioning travel-inspired pieces for its Objets Nomades collection since 2012. In that time, it’s created a platform for over a dozen designers to create work influenced by and commenting on the experience of travel.

Objets Nomades: A Stunning Interpretation Of Everyday Items — Louis Vuitton Diamond Mirror PM by Marcel Wanders, Bell Lamp By Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby, Blossom Stool by Tokujin Yoshioka, Bomboca Sofa by Fernando and Humberto Campana, Mandala by Zanellato/Bortotto

Consider the Swell Wave Shelf by Andrew Kudless, the first American designer to create a piece for the collection. Its softly curved oak shelves are suspended, one below the next, by red leather straps threaded through smooth slots in each board. This creates a feeling of movement, a push-pull that makes it come alive.

Some of the makers think about travel a little more practically. Brazilian designer Humberto Campana, who, along with his brother Fernando, created several pieces for the collection, says he likes to take inspiration from the unique materials he finds while abroad and create beautiful pieces of art that have soul and function.

The Campana Brothers are also inspired by nature, especially the beauty of his home country of Brazil. When we look at the piece Cocoon, a leather-clad egg-shaped hanging chair, perforated throughout with wavy cutouts you might think they are leaves. This is how they beautifully incorporate nature in their modern art.

And because the Objets Nomades pieces are crafted by Louis Vuitton’s artisans, the expertise and attention to detail is evident. All of the concepts of this collection embody their shared ideals of the love for the beauty of fine materials, the possibility of forms and perfectly balanced proportions, complex and meticulous craftsmanship and exceptions attention to detail.