These artists give Louis Vuitton’s Capucines bag an artistic makeover

Six artists are perfecting Louis Vuitton’s “Artycapucines” bags. Billie Zangewa is one of them.

Loves to add sparkle to everyday events. And literally, because South African artist Billie Zangewa creates collage-like fabric paintings for which she uses silk threads. The morning shower, preparing the bottle for her baby, relaxing on the sofa: for her hand-sewn tapestry “The Swimming Lesson” of 2020 she was inspired by the weekly trips to the pool that she took with her son Mika . You can see a little boy sitting on the edge of the pool and above him a washed out terracotta sky.

Louis Vuitton collaborates again with international artists

An adaptation of this carpet now also adorns a Louis Vuitton bag and is part of the “Artycapucines” series, which the house is now launching for the fifth time. Zangewa is – together with Ewa Juszkiewicz, the duo Tursic & Mille, Liza Lou and Ziping Wang – one of the artists chosen by the Maison to finish one of the “Capucines” bags. In her model, as in the original tapestry, a piece of the image appears to have been torn away. “I feel attracted to unfinished things,” says Zangewa, explaining his passion for fragments and sharp edges. With Louis Vuitton he developed a method to transfer these characteristics to his “Capucines”. For the edition of 200 copies, the original raw silk image was scanned and printed in full detail onto the leather.

In this way, Zangewa’s unmistakable signature is preserved. You can see the stitches, threads, beads that she has incorporated into the embroidery. In the final step, the artist added three gold penguin pendants. Another allusion to Mika, that after long lessons in the pool, she dared to go into the sea, where she swam with real penguins. “It’s a tribute to my son,” Zangewa says of the bag. “When he was born, my creativity blossomed.”

Speaking of craftsmanship and art: these six artists perfected the Louis Vuitton “Capucines” bag

Billie Zangewa

Billie Zangewa sews fabric images from silk threads that can reach the size of a rug. For her version of the “Artycapucines” bag she chose the motif of her work “Swimming Lesson” from 2020, in which she depicts her son Mika at the edge of the pool.

Zip Wang

Ziping Wang finds inspiration everywhere: in the ancient cultures of China and Japan and in the sensory overload of daily life in megacities.

The artist duo Tursic & Millie

The duo Tursic & Millie also used busy urban life as a model for the design of their bag.

Lisa Lou

Liza Lou, however, is completely different: she used abstract, seemingly breathless color compositions as a model. In this context, not without irony: Lou is from New York.

Ewa Juszkiewicz

Polish Ewa Juszkiewicz is at home in surrealism. Her bag features a section of the 2021 painting “Nutbrown Knots.”