For some reason, Louis Vuitton hits it out of the park for Valentine’s Day better than any other brand this side of Cartier. (Not that Cartier does anything in particular for the holiday, but, you know, DIAMONDS.) Vuitton always has a few heart-shaped small leather goods on hand at this time of year for the occasion, and this year’s V-Day vernis is striped in red and pink (it also comes in a darker jewel-toned version). If you think the lady on your list has enough key holders, wallets and bag charms to last a lifetime, Vuitton also has a couple jewelry options. We’ve picked a few of the best after the jump, and many of the options are $500 or less. The entire range can be found at LouisVuitton.com, and remember, the big day is only a week away.

Louis Vuitton Coeur Coin Purse, $500 via Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton Lock Me Earrings, $460 via Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton Vernis Striped Mirror Case, $360 via Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton Coeur Rayures Key Holder, $350 via Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton Vernis Sarah Wallet, $815 via Louis Vuitton

Louis Vuitton Lock Me Bracelet, $580 via Louis Vuitton

It’s my most favorite Man Bag Monday of the season, you guys! As far as big handbag brands go, Louis Vuitton is without question the line that gives the most amount of love to its male customers instead of just focusing on us ladies. Not only does Vuitton do a full runway show of menswear in Paris during Men’s Fashion Week every season, but the clothes area always accompanies by a litany of utterly gorgeous manbags.

Some seasons the designs skew more feminine than others and seem as though they might actually be intended to be carried by women and they gay men who are seriously jealous of our accessories. Louis Vuitton Fall 2012, on the other hand, was full of bags that almost anyone could appreciate – gay men both feminine and masculine, straight dudes, ladies. The color palette was one of neutral tans and greyed-out navys, with hardware and embellishment kept to a minimum. Something tells me this collection is going to sell quite briskly once it hits stores in late summer. Check out more pictures after the jump.

Louis Vuitton’s Spring 2012 runway show was a joy to behold for a variety of reasons: the enormous carousel set piece bearing dozens of the world’s best models, girlish clothes in the most powdery and feminine of pastels, luxury in every detail. The entire collection felt fresh, light and joyful. Personally, though, I was distracted by one thing and one thing only, which was trying to guess how much the littany of crocodile pieces, from bags to jackets, would cost once they hit retail. Not only is crocodile astronomically expensive all on its own, but Vuitton tends to charge a premium for all of its products, above and beyond most another brands.

For the handbag star of the collection, the Louis Vuitton Crocodile Old Speedy Flap, we now have an answer, but go ahead and try to guess before you peek.

$33,000.

My personal guess was around $35,000 and I thought that even that kind of figure might be a little low, particularly when you consider that so many designers seem to be in some sort of unofficial race to see who can produce the most ridiculously expensive bag of them all. (Hermes probably has everyone already beat on that anyway.) Not that $33,000 is something that is even within the realm of reason to pay for a handbag – it’s not! But, you know, it’s closer than The Row.

Louis Vuitton surely has clients who will pony up for this bag in one of its three colors – mint, jaune (pale yellow) or nuit (navy blue with a bit of softness) – or who knows, maybe someone will get it in all three. Primarily, though, pieces like this one serve a public relations function; not only do they get people talking, but they represent the designer as a purveyor of the sort of rarified goods that only a tiny sliver of the global population can ever hope to possess. If you have an extra thirty grand or so laying around the house, inquire about this bag via LouisVuitton.com.

When you’re a brand with a rabid, slavish following like French leathergoods giant Hermes, it’s important to think outside the box in order to both maximize profits and cater to your very particular customer’s every need. With quarterly growth in the double digits since time immemorial, Hermes has taken a page out of the Louis Vuitton book and now brands everything under the sun, including the simplest of writing implements: the pencil.

Fancy-pants pens have long been a hallmark of the luxury industry, but the leather-wrapped Hermes Arlequin H Pencil is something different entirely. Pens can be refilled with fine ink and passed down from generation to generation; pencils, on the other hand, are meant to be used up in short order by virtue of their very construction.

When I first came across this…pencil (there are no fancy words for pencil), my immediate thought was, “Well, I bet Louis Vuitton makes one too.” Hermes and Louis Vuitton are alike in a lot of ways (and LVMH seems to be hell-bent on making them part of the same whole), and they are perhaps the only two fashion brands with clients rabid enough to buy pencils from them. Chanel might also make that list, but I have yet to find a pencil from that particular set of Frenchies, so we’ll leave ‘em out for a moment.

Louis Vuitton Golden Agenda Pencil, $245 via Louis Vuitton

Vuitton does, in fact, make a pencil. It comes in both silver and gold and retails for $175 or $245, respectively. The Vuitton pencil, though, appears to be a refillable implement intended for longterm use, so while it’s still a little silly, at least you won’t have to throw it away after a few months of using it in one of the brand’s agendas.

On the other hand, unless I’m mistaken, the Hermes pencil is just a normal, wooden writing implement wrapped in a thin layer of woven leather and meant to be sharpened. At this point in my nearly unending leather goods ennui, I’m merely surprised that Hermes doesn’t also offer a matching leather-covered pencil sharpener. Maybe next season. Buy through Hermes for $85.

Usually, Louis Vuitton artist collaborations are easy to describe. The French brand tends to err on the side of big, bold, graphic visuals, and subtlety usually isn’t a common trait among its collections with the likes of Stephen Sprouse and Takashi Murakami. To say that the twee, low-fi animation of the brand’s recent video, The Great Journey of Little Bagcharms, is unexpected would be an understatement. It’s a good kind of unexpected, though.

Vuitton teamed up with artist Christian Borstlap to animate this short film to fete the launch of the new Louis Vuitton Montgolfiere Bag Charm, a hot air balloon carrying a classic trunk. Even if you have little interest in the charm itself, the video’s old school line drawings and the sweet song that accompanies them are a nice little respite from your lunchtime food coma. Check out a larger picture of the charm and pricing information after the jump.

As I’ve mentioned previously this week, the non-season seasons really irk me, as an accessories lover. Even Louis Vuitton, a company that knows where its bread is buttered (the brand didn’t even start making ready-to-wear until Marc Jacobs’ advent in the 90s), doesn’t release handbag shots with its standard lookbook for pre-season collections. C’mon, Vuitton, throw us a bone!

Because we have so many LV addicts in our audience, though, I thought I’d publish the lookbook itself, which includes several peeks at what this line will have to offer, purse-wise. There’s a little fur, a little matte leather and a little bit of saturated color. In short, most of these bags are a whole lot of wearable. I’ll take the emerald green duffel right now, thank you. Full photos after the jump – the immaculately detailed, incredibly luxurious clothes are worth a look as well.

Many brands have tried out the designer-artists collaboration, but only Louis Vuitton has it down to a science (and an extremely profitable one at that). Even casual fashion watchers know the names of the artists that Vuitton has brought on – Stephen Sprouse, anyone? Takashi Murakami, does that ring a bell? Vuitton announced earlier this week that it’s about to make another artist a household fashion name – Yayoi Kusama, an 82-year-old Japanese visual artist known for her love of dots.

Kusama is well known in the contemporary art world, but her name may be new to accessories lovers. Fret not, we’ve assembled a few samples of her work after the jump, and her bold, graphic aesthetic seems perfect for a Vuitton collaboration. Yayoi Kusama for Louis Vuitton will include ready-to-wear, handbags, accessories, shoes, watches and jewelry, and it will bow with special fancy-pants window displays in early July.

We know that Louis Vuitton is willing to sue anyone and everyone in order to make sure that its logo or name isn’t used in any ways of which it doesn’t approve; after all, the company sued Hyundai last year over the brief appearance of a monogrammed basketball in one of its commercials. The ball didn’t even have an “LV” on it, but that didn’t stop Vuitton from filing a trademark infringement complaint against the Korean carmaker. When it comes to trademark issues, LVMH is perhaps more steadfast and humorless than any other company on the planet.

The latest target in the crosshairs of the LVMH legal department is Warner Brothers, the production company behind The Hangover 2. The movie apparently contains some faux luggage that one of the characters refers to as real, which has Vuitton brass none too pleased.

I haven’t seen the movie, but according to Gawker, Zach Galifianakis says at one point, “Careful, this is a Louis Vuitton.” LVMH believes that the line has become a recognizable catchphrase (I feel fairly confident that they’re wrong because I’ve never heard anyone say that, ever, but what do I know?) and that the ensuing notoriety of the scene has caused the brand damage. (I’m also fairly confident that they’re wrong about that too.)

What’s interesting, though, is that Vuitton isn’t claiming that the movie used counterfeit goods. Instead, the lawsuit claims that Warner Brothers used luggage made by a company called Diophy Handbags, which produces those heinous “almost-Vuitton” bags that you see hocked at carts in the mall. For their part, Louis Vuitton also has a pendling lawsuit against Diophy for trademark infringement.

So what do you think – does LVMH have a legitimate case? Should the movie’s production staff have sourced real Louis Vuitton to borrow for the film, which would certainly have been easy to do in Los Angeles? Or should a fictional character in a fictional movie claiming that a prop is made by a brand that didn’t actually make it be a total non-issue? Share your thoughts in the comments.

Because I know we have so many Louis Vuitton fanatics around here, I couldn’t resist posting these first looks at the Louis Vuitton Spring 2012 ad campaign. If you followed our coverage of the Vuitton runway show a few months ago, you probably could have guessed how this campaign would look – pale, precious and ever so sweet. The brand tapped Steven Meisel to shoot Daria Strokous and Kati Nescher in the world’s most luxurious ice cream shop, and the result fit the mood of the clothing and accessories perfectly. Check out another shot after the jump.

A while back, we showed you the collection of animals that British artist Billie Achilleos made out of Louis Vuitton small leather goods. I love the idea of bringing art together with fashion, and Billie tackled that challenge in an amazing way.

With the new George Street Maison Louis Vuitton location opening in Sydney, Australia, Billie created a trio of animals specially for the occasion. The Louis Vuitton Kangaroo with the baby Joey in its pouch is my favorite, but all three combine fashion and art wonderfully.

[Images via Louis Vuitton facebook page]