With Visionary Journeys at Nakanoshima Museum of Art, the French label provides a priceless lesson in culture, design, and history.
At Osaka’s Nakanoshima Museum of Art, Louis Vuitton whisks visitors away on a captivating journey where art, culture, and history intersect. With Visionary Journeys, the fashion house celebrates its 170th anniversary by throwing open its LV-embossed trunks to brand devotees, fashion historians, and art lovers, offering an experience that both unveils and revels in the brand’s enduring mystique. Instead of simply wearing or carrying Louis Vuitton, you can be fully immersed in it; between July 15 and September 17, 2025, Visionary Journeys opens a doorway into this rarified world of beauty, craftsmanship, and historical significance.
Curated by fashion historian Florence Müller and designed by Shohei Shigematsu, a partner at OMA, the exhibition presents an illuminating overview of both Louis Vuitton and Japanese history. It features more than 1,000 objects, including 200 Japanese artifacts, displayed together to highlight this vibrant cultural union. Elaborate Samurai armor sits enthroned in LV travel cases. On a Japanese lacquerware box, calligraphy sprawls around a blend of kamon, or family crests, that resemble the iconic LV pattern. Like stepping into a vibrant tome of history, the exhibition comprises twelve themed chapters, “[…] illuminating the House’s evolution through innovation, savoir-faire, and global exploration.”
The Nakanoshima Museum’s lofty, five-tiered ceiling sets the stage for an otherworldly experience. Hanging in the Atrium like stalactites or samurai swords, visitors are nearly penetrated by the eight dangling columns of washi paper, warmly lit from within and styled like Monogram trunks. They are next greeted by the exhibition’s signature ‘Trunkscape’ installations, Shigematsu’s “immersive trunk hemisphere, a symbolic gateway of 138 assembled trunks which evokes a vessel of transformation […]” Within these earthly domes, visitors experience the purest essence of Louis Vuitton immersion; the intersecting trunks create a near kaleidoscopic effect with their glinting gold hardware and vibrantly-colored leather.
The succeeding chapters unfold as visual lessons in the history of the brand and its colorful connection with Japan. In rooms like Asnières and Origins, LV staples, such as flat-top trunks and steamer bags, alongside archival footage, photographs, and drawings, chart the auspicious path from Louis Vuitton’s humble Parisian beginnings in the 1850s to global household status. Materials breaks down the core tactile elements of LV trunks, while The Workshop shines a light on the craftspeople whose skills keep Louis Vuitton at the forefront of fashion design.
Louis Vuitton owes much to the influence of Japanese style—both historic and contemporary—as celebrated in the chapter Louis Vuitton and Japan. Japonisme, a French term coined in the mid-1800s, describes a European mania towards Japanese artistry and design. Early Louis Vuitton creations were not exempt from this Western craze, and the brand continues to value and incorporate elements of Japanese culture, from modern collaborations with artists like Yayoi Kusama and Takashi Murakami to the inclusion of tea ceremonies and the kawaii aesthetic.
Perhaps most integral to LV’s enduring legacy is the Monogram, a stately, instantly recognizable design that has adorned bags, trunks, shoes, and other sartorial creations. We have seen it in many iterations, from the playful and new, like Murakami’s cherry designs and Marc Jacobs’s brash graffiti transformation, to the classic and sophisticated. In the Monogram canvas chapter, the 1896 canvas design by Georges Vuitton takes center stage, reminding us that despite the nearly two centuries of change and innovation, sometimes a single spark of inspiration can set the course for years to come.
With all the sensory pleasures and useful information it offers under one roof, Visionary Journeys is a one-stop shop for a comprehensive and deeply enjoyable education on the cultural touchstone that is the house of Louis Vuitton.
Photos by Jeremie Souteyrat. All imagery coutesy of Louis Vuitton.
