How Stephen Sprouse Transformed Louis Vuitton Long before Virgil Abloh was breaking down doors at Louis Vuitton, and even before Kim Jones was joining the French Maison with Supreme, @themarcjacobs was at the helm. During his reign, Jacobs pioneered the luxury house collaboration, part of his wider efforts to renew life into the stuffy luggage brand. The one thing he was told to never do was to corrupt the logo. However, much like Virgil Abloh, he had been hired to disrupt, and so looked to Marcel Duchamp - in particular, his ‘L.H.O.O.Q’ work (a defaced Mona Lisa). Jacob’s realised that in “defacing something, making it new again” he could refresh the brand, and so tapped his close friend Stephen Sprouse to graffiti over and deface the monogram. Although disruptive, Sprouse was in many ways an ideal fit. As the New York Times put it, the designer and artist “pioneered.... mixing uptown sophistication in clothing with a downtown punk and pop sensibility”. That’s essentially LV’s direction today, and was a huge influence on how Jacobs defined LV’s Ready to Wear look. Just as with his infamous final Perry Ellis collection, #marcjacobs was well aware of the power in inciting controversy. He called the collab “anti-snob snobbism”, embracing the irony in using graffiti in such an establishment label. When it realised in 2001, the collaboration was hugely successful, selling out worldwide, and transformed the perception of #louisvuitton. It not only set ground for future designers at the brand to edit the monogram, but set precedent across luxury for disruptive collaborations that still maintained brand identity. When Sprouse passed away in 2004, LV stores carried his graffiti in a tribute. In the years following, the graffiti was copied over to NYFW tents, reissued bags and skateboards, and even full body paint. Jacobs himself would continually dedicate work to Sprouse, from 09’s ‘WeLoveSprouse’ collection to using the recent Louis 200 collection to spotlight the work. His legacy can still be seen in the label, and wider luxury brands today, creating the template for the high-low mix of modern luxury.