Louis Vuitton x Sun Yitian Is The Fun Fashion Collaboration Your Wardrobe Needs

Louis Vuitton’s vibrant collaboration with Chinese artist Sun Yitian gives a whole new meaning to animal print

Louis Vuitton x Sun Yitian collaboration 2024 — Louis Vuitton unveiled a collaboration with Chinese artist Sun Yitian, featuring bags, ready-to-wear, fragrances and accessories

At Louis Vuitton’s first Voyager show, which was held in Shanghai this April, creative director Nicolas Ghesquière unveiled a leopard coat. It is not anything like what you are thinking: Louis Vuitton’s version comes in pink silk satin and instead of spots, it is embellished with a leather belt across the chest and a print of an orange inflatable leopard.

Eagle‐eyed fans would note the obvious reference to Chinese artist Sun Yitian’s paintings: the coat’s lurid colours take inspiration from a recurring plastic toy motif in Sun’s work. Ghesquière discovered Sun and her work during his trip to China last year. He then decided to collaborate with the Beijing‐based artist for the French luxury maison’s Pre‐Fall 2024 collection, adding her colourful animal artworks to clothes, shoes, accessories and the maison’s signature bags—think a smiling pink rabbit adorning a shift dress, a wide‐eyed yellow duck on the façade of a Louis Vuitton Onthego PM tote bag and a zebra embroidered onto an Alma BB handbag.

Blackpink’s Lisa with a bag from the Louis Vuitton x Sun Yitian collaboration (Photo: Instagram / lalalalisa_m) — Blackpink’s Lisa was spotted with the Nano Speedy bag from the Louis Vuitton x Sun Yitian collaboration (Photo: Instagram / lalalalisa_m)

For Sun, those adorable animals hold special significance. The 33‐year‐old artist grew up in the Chinese city of Wenzhou, which is a major manufacturing hub for goods such as shoes, purses, electronic parts and toys. In her paintings, Sun often depicts such toys in deliberate, photorealistic detail as a way to subvert the idea of mass production. “My creations start with so‐called ‘Made in China’ goods,” wrote Sun in an Instagram post. “These products are manufactured in factories and distributed around the world at extremely low prices. As the main subjects on my canvas, these items, which may initially seem unremarkable or even cheap, then become expensive pieces of art.” Sun’s collaboration with Louis Vuitton, a luxury behemoth, takes that idea even further. “It transforms these humble items into genuine luxury goods,” she wrote.

The Louis Vuitton and Sun Yitian collaboration even extends beyond fashion into fragrances. For the first time, the maison has introduced limited‐edition perfume bottles that are decorated with charms inspired by Sun’s animals and the “LV” logo. The charms are attached by a golden metal chain, and are offered exclusively with three Louis Vuitton fragrances: Spell on You, Imagination and Heures d’Absence.

Louis Vuitton has a history of collaborating with artists, including notable names such as Yayoi Kusama and Takashi Murakami. This new collection, with its cheery creatures, is sure to spark joy in both the brand’s customers and its latest collaborator, Sun. “When my artworks are translated into clothing, bags or perfumes, they become much closer to people, and this interaction is lively and unpredictable,” she says. “It creates an equal relationship of use.”