Every Industry Insider Is Checking Into The Louis Vuitton Hotel This Spring

When André Leon Talley (then a fledgling fashion editor) wrote off Anna Wintour’s car in the mid ’80s, he cared little about the state of his new boss’s wheels, or indeed his own extremities. “Is my luggage ok?” he wrote in his 2020 memoir The Chiffon Trenches. Talley’s much-loved Louis Vuitton luggage came courtesy of then-head of Chanel, Karl Lagerfeld, who bequeathed him an oversized, monogrammed trunk, after Talley endured the unbearable horror of travelling to Paris with “13 pieces of mismatched luggage”.

In the 130 years since Georges Vuitton dreamt up the Parisian house’s iconic monogram, every “L” and “V” that is tessellated across its bags – be it a personalised Neverfull or an embossed Alma – emulates a sense of luxurious escape. Just look to a 1966 paparazzi shot of Audrey Hepburn, holding a Louis Vuitton Speedy bag, jetting off to Switzerland from Heathrow airport. Or Bella Hadid snapped arriving in Milan in 2019, carrying a vintage cherry-print duffel bag from the Parisian house’s cult (and revived) collaboration with Takashi Murakami.

Now, the cultural legacy of five of Louis Vuitton’s most enduring bag designs – the Speedy, Keepall, Noé, Alma and Neverfull – is being celebrated in the heart of London’s Mayfair, with an immersive townhouse concept, titled the Louis Vuitton Hotel. Opening on 24 April for two months, the multi-level pop-up space in Berkeley Square (the only one that will exist in Europe), revels in the cultural narratives and savoir faire embedded within its luggage-making history.

Monogram monomaniacs will enter the space through the Keepall Lobby, a visual celebration of Talley’s travel favourite, which revolutionised the art of elegant travel with its notion of soft, foldable luggage in 1930. Once upstairs, guests can sip champagne and nibble on afternoon tea treats at Café Alma, a culinary celebration of the brand’s 1992-founded bag, named after Place de l’Alma in Paris. Also on the second floor: the Speedy Room homes in on the sleek and constantly evolving design of a bag beloved by not just Hepburn, but Rihanna, Snoop Dog and Sarah Jessica Parker. The accompanying gold-drenched Speedy P9 Safe Room celebrates Pharrell Williams’s ultra luxurious take on the silhouette, one assembled from 60 components using 240 precise steps. On the top floor? A tribute to surely the most ubiquitous accessory in Mayfair’s spas and workout spaces. The Neverfull gym playfully riffs on the notion that the beloved 2007-introduced tote bag weighs a lightweight 800g yet can carry up to an impressive 100kg.

But the most buzzing space is found on the lower ground floor at Bar Noé, a sleek champagne bar inspired by the history of the Noé bag, a drawstring silhouette favoured by Julianne Moore, Angelina Jolie and Dakota Johnson. The bag was first created in 1932 at the request of a champagne producer, who wanted to carry five bottles of bubbly over his shoulder. The bucket-shaped Noé can hold four bottles of champagne upright, and one inverted in its centre. Naturally, the bar named after it will serve only the finest fizz, against a musical backdrop curated by a roster of DJs.

After the injustice of Talley travelling with mismatched luggage to Paris, one of his most memorable airport visits came when he accompanied a team of models from Milan to the French capital, before Marc Jacobs’s debut collection for Louis Vuitton in March 1998. After a group including Naomi Campbell, Trish Goff and Kirsty Hume were delayed in Italy indefinitely, Jacobs sent a private jet stuffed with boxes of monogrammed bags to collect the girls. When they exited the plane on French soil, they were papped carrying fistfuls of Louis Vuitton luggage, with Campbell toting one of Jacob’s first Keepall designs in striking baby blue leather. Whether venturing to the Louis Vuitton Hotel via car, plane or simply the tube, the spirit of ultra-chic travel lives on in London this spring.