Louis Vuitton Handbags and Purses (Page 4)

Angelina Jolie in Louis Vuitton’s Core Values Campaign. Click to enlarge.

The latest installment of Louis Vuitton’s Core Values Campaign features actress and UN Goodwill ambassador Angelina Jolie.

Angelina agreed to be captured by famous photographer Annie Leibowitz for the campaign in Cambodia, a country which she first visited in 2000 for her role as Lara Croft and later returned on humanitarian missions, raising awareness of the dangers of landmines. She subsequently adopted her first child, Maddox, from a Cambodia orphanage.

The striking capture shows Jolie sitting in a traditional wooden boat in the province of Siem Reap, alongside her vintage Louis Vuitton Monogram Alto Holdall, a bag she has owned for many years.

Some accessories junkies look at certain handbag designs and see faces, but this exhibit by British artist Billie Achilleos takes that phenomenon to a whole new level. Louis Vuitton commissioned several animal sculptures from her made entirely out of Louis Vuitton handbags and accessories to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Louis Vuitton SLG Savoir Faire collection. What Achilleos was able to do with leather goods is amazing (not to mention amazingly adorable), and we’ve got more pictures of her creatures, plus a video of the construction process, after the jump.

The introduction of a new Louis Vuitton Speedy is always cause for celebration among handbag fiends, and we think that this particular bag will be of wide interest. The Louis Vuitton Speedy Bandoulière is similar to the monogram Speedy that we all know and love, but it brings with it the thoroughly modern addition of an integrated shoulder strap. Optional straps have long been available for purchase to clip onto the traditional Speedy’s handle attachments, but this dedicated strap brings with it a design logic that is lacking in a simple add-on.

Itching to see this Speedy in action? Of course you are, which is why Vuitton and Caroline Sieber put together a catalog of shots with the Speedy Bandoulière out and about on a sunny day in London. We have those shots, plus a price list for the new bag, after the jump. Or if you’d like to skip straight to buying, the bags are available now via Vuitton.com.

Tapping into a recent boom in tourism among affluent Chinese, Louis Vuitton has opened an epic new exhibit cataloging the art of travel at the National Museum of China in Beijing. The presentation, which opened this week, covers the brand’s iconic travel pieces and handbags as well as a historical view of travel from an artistic perspective.

Much has been made over the burgeoning luxury market in China, and this event, which runs through August 30th, is surely a bid to ingratiate Louis Vuitton to a country that has been driving a huge proportion of the industry’s growth. Say what you want about the tactic or its place in the art world, but one thing is for sure: LVMH knows how to create a spectacle. For those of us who won’t be making the trip to see the the display in person, we’ve got some great photos of the handbags and travel pieces featured as part of the exhibit, after the jump.

Every year, consulting firm Millward Brown Optimor takes stock of the global luxury industry and decides who the key players are based on revenue, profits and overall brand value. And every year, Louis Vuitton takes the top spot with a valuation even more massive than the year before. Fashionista.com reports that according to Millward Brown Optimor, Vuitton’s worth was up 23% in 2010 over 2009, a year when it was also the most powerful and wealthy luxury brand on the face of the planet.

That puts its value at over twice that of Hermes, it’s next closest competitor and also a big gainer for 2010 with a 41% jump in valuation. With those kinds of increases, it’s no wonder why it seems as though LVMH, Vuitton’s parent company, might be looking to gobble up the independent French brand. And that’s not the only place on the power list that LVMH makes it’s mark. Spirits megabrands Moet & Chandon and Hennessy, who account for the M and H in the conglomerate’s name, also appear in the top ten. Take a look at the entire list, after the jump.

It’s been a full month since all of the fashion week festivities started, and they’ve finally come to an end. Showing at the very end of the cycle can either be a blessing or a curse; if what you’ve put together is merely mediocre (or worse, if it’s flat-out bad), critics and buyers are more likely to look harshly on it because of our fatigue at four weeks worth of clothes and accessories. If the collection you’re presenting is as good as beautifully fetishistic Louis Vuitton Fall 2011, though, then you get the glorious distinction of closing out the season on a high note and having your clothes by foremost in the minds of editors.

Vuitton is not a handbag company that I normally look to for my own purchases because of my personal preference toward bags without logos, but its fall accessory offerings were easily some of the best of the entire season. The central idea of the handbag collection was a theme and variations starring the brand’s ever-popular Lockit shape, much like the Speedy iterations that we saw from Vuitton for Fall 2010. It’s an idea that worked well then and works well now, with the disciplined lines of the Lockit lending themselves seamlessly to the upscale kink of the Vuitton ready-to-wear. Let’s not talk about the fuzzy bags and pretend those never happened, ok? Everything else was too good of a distraction.

We can not go for more than a few weeks with Man Bag Monday without featuring Louis Vuitton. LV’s bag are not only iconic for women but also for men. Louis Vuitton offers a wide variety of canvases and leathers to choose from which makes each item stand apart from the next, even if it is slightly.

When the Damier Graphite collection was introduced in the Fall of 2008, it was evident it would be an instant sensation, especially for men. I love the pairing of grey and black squares which looks both masculine and stylish.