Here I am on a cold and blustery Parisian afternoon, outside the walled in gates of the ancestral Louis Vuitton home in Asnières. This gate, I am told, is often besieged by eager Japanese and Chinese tourists who are invariably turned away disappointed. But today, I am led into the inner sanctorum, in a sense, to the history of fashion itself. The Asnières home and workshop were created in 1859, just four years after the company was founded by Louis Vuitton, who invented the first flat trunk and made travel accessories fashionable. The favourite layetier of the Empress Eugenie had his first store at 4 Rue Neuve des Capucines where his friend, Charles Frederick Worth had opened his first boutique. Worth, as we know, has been credited with the invention of haute couture and was the first to put his own signature on his creations. Similarly, Louis’ son, Georges, in 1896, created a canvas bearing the Louis Vuitton initials. In the creation of the monogram canvas, can be said to lie at least in part, the foundations of modern luxury. The ‘brand’ and logo world as we know it today.

Having traversed the bright and airy reception rooms dominated by bay windows with exquisite stained glass and decorated in the then emerging Art Nouveau style, in itself a daring choice at a time when traditional stodgy décor was favoured by the bourgeoisie, I step into the private ‘Museum of Travel’, housed here. The museum brings the history of Louis Vuitton to life through some of its most outstanding creations. The steamer bag, a ladies wardrobe trunk from 1924, an early Keepall, the driver bag among other iconic creations as well as special orders like the Vuitton trunk-bed are on display. In the original trianon, the striped canvas, the checked damier and the eternal monogram.

In the context of modern fashion, the monogram beckons by way of its longevity. A contradiction of sorts, in itself, where fashion by its very nature, is ephemeral and changing with the seasons. Any fashion house that is interested in longevity would need to respond to what is culturally current. Given the rhythms of the past, a deep anchoring in a design made more than a century ago, what then accounts for the popularity today of a canvas that continues to draw fashionistas from Bollywood to Hollywood, those who love its symmetry and respond to its energy.

While the revived and once-again fami–liar, chocolate-checked damier canvas was founder Louis Vuitton’s final creation, the monogram was created by his son Georges in an attempt to thwart plagiarism. Georges began working on the design of the new canvas soon after the death of his father in 1892. This was indeed a tribute to his father as can be seen in the inclusion of the initials, LV. One romantic view maintains that the ornaments are flowers that he scatters to crown Louis’ work. The floral elements may have been inspired by decorative elements in the Vuitton home. Georges may also have borrowed from the traditions of heraldry. This was also the time of Japonisme, the opening of Japan to the West and the influence of Japanese art. Could the tradition of Japanese crests called mon, and their stylised floral motifs have influenced him? It seems likely.

The new design was called monogram because of the intertwined initials. A monogram is the symbolic signature with which an artist marks his work, authenticates it, making it unique. By adopting the artist’s privilege, Georges asserted the uniqueness of luxury goods as well as their artistic dimension. The trunk maker had elevated himself with this sign of distinction, into more than a technician, into a creator of fashion fetishistic objects.

In a fast changing world, the monogram entrenched itself firmly by drawing from the freshness of contemporeity and modernism. At a time when designers delighted with their originality, the monogram celebrated its centenary, in 1996, by reinventing itself through their perspective. The fashion house invited seven contemporary haute designers to create a collection of items using the monogram canvas and this was displayed in the world’s fashion capitals. And so we have Azzedine Alaia’s feline handbag; Helmut Lang’s musical trunk; Spanish designer Sybilla’s backpack with an umbrella; Manolo Blahnik’s small trunk; Romeo Gigli’s backpack and Vivienne Westwood’s ‘false-bustle’ bag. This anniversary celebration also marked Louis Vuitton’s entry into the fashion world and the coming of the age of Marc Jacobs and the vision of collaborating with artists.

“This may sound silly but one of my major artistic references is a work by Marcel Duchamp called L.H.O.O.Q. Mona Lisa with a moustache,” Marc Jacobs, creative director of Louis Vuitton, has admitted. “Drawing graffiti on the monogram was going as far as Duchamp did when he defaced the Mona Lisa.” New York artist, Stephen Sprouse, drew graffiti on the monogram canvas for a limited-edition bag collection. “As though doing this made the original stronger, cooler, energetic and punky,” adds Jacobs. This original artistic collaboration has led to several others, including the summer of 2005 which saw the hundred-year-old canvas covered in cherries by contemporary artist, Takashi Murakami. The popularity of this cheery and bubbly interpretation can be measured by the huge number of rip offs that the style inspired.