Louis Vuitton teams up with the Chapman brothers again

This morning at Paris Fashion Week, Kim Jones presented his SS17 collection for Louis Vuitton. As well as “expressing notions of safari and the gentleman traveller”, the collection featured four prints created in collaboration with the enfants terribles of Britart, Jake and Dinos Chapman.

Of course, it’s not the first time Jones has collaborated with the pair – back in 2013, he commissioned them to design a print that was featured on the clothing and luggage of the label’s AW13 collection.“I’m not really a planner. I’ve never planned things. I just do stuff. I’ve always wanted to work with Jake and Dinos, and the timing just felt really right,” said Jones in a 2013 interview with Dazed.

Like the ones they designed for AW13, the prints debuted this morning also depicted slightly twisted portrayals of animals – elephants, giraffes and zebras – that reflected the collection’s safari theme. 

“There’s always something a little London hidden somewhere, though. This time, it is the influence of punk – albeit via Africa, where Frank Marshall’s Renegades portrait series of Botswana biker gangs in heavy leather depicts the fusion of two disparate aesthetics. Add a third, the French elegance of Louis Vuitton,” said the designer, who grew up in Africa, in the show notes.

However there was also an element of fetishism in the collection – models wore leather chokers and padlock necklaces around their necks, and latex coats branded with the LV monogram.