Revisiting Richard Prince´s Nurse Series For Louis Vuitton

In an effort to battle the COVID-19 pandemic, surgical masks have become a sign of the times, and they're not going anywhere anytime soon. It seems wearing masks will be the trend of choice for the foreseeable future as the narrative around the face coverings has morphed into a combination of both protective gear and fashion accessory. Long before the current crisis, however, Louis Vuitton presented a subversive take on health and safety on the Spring/Summer 2008 runway. With Marc Jacobs at the helm and a creative collaboration with artist Richard Prince, a dozen models donned a chic take on the classic nurse uniform, complete with branded face masks. As healthcare workers have become the frontline heroes of the pandemic, CR honors National Nurses Day with a look back on this memorable moment in fashion history.

Throughout Marc Jacobs' tenure as creative director of Louis Vuitton, the designer made a name for himself by bending the house codes and modernizing the image of the French maison. In this process, Jacobs collaborated with a range of legendary artists like Stephen Sprouse, Yayoi Kusama, and Takashi Murakami, who all applied their flair to sartorial pieces for Louis Vuitton. “I was always really intimidated by the art world" Jacobs said. "Then I got to know these artists a little bit—some a lot—and that fed my interest in their work.

For the Spring/Summer 2008 runway show, Jacobs tapped Prince after seeing his 2007 exhibition Spiritual America at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City. The end product unveiled a blend of fine art and fashion as the show opened to a series of 12 models–including Naomi Campbell, Eva Herzigova, and Natalia Vodinova–dressed in see-through nurse uniforms with each letter of the fashion house's name fixed on the center of their nurse's caps. Additionally, each model was styled with a black lace face mask adorned with the iconic LV monogram print.

The striking theatrics of the show's opening was a nod to Prince's famous Nurse paintings, one of which can be seen as the cover art for Sonic Youth's 2004 album Sonic Nurse. The nurses that appeared on Louis Vuitton's runway embodied the same sexually charged kink that Prince prescribed to his paintings, modeling them after the covers of '40s-era pulp romance novels.

Elsewhere, the show followed a playful style with bright colors dominating and sparkling sequins, glittery lurex, and crumpled taffeta adding texture. As for accessories, handbags were also touched by Prince, featuring the artist's Jokes series (also used in Raf Simmons' debut campaign for Calvin Klein) printed across the side of monogrammed bags in a washed out watercolor finish. The collaborative handbag collection would later receive a launch party at the Guggenheim, where the LV nurses would again model the exclusive pieces.

In the wake of the current pandemic, several accounts took to social media to recall Louis Vuitton's Spring/Summer 2008 show as an image of what fashion might look like in the coming months. Jacobs' himself even reminisced on the show in an Instagram post–"wish I’d have held on to one of these" he wrote.