This is not the Monogram’s first rodeo.
Louis Vuitton celebrated the centenary of its brown and gold patterned canvas back in 1996, famously conscripting designers including Helmut Lang, Romeo Gigli, Vivienne Westwood, Azzedine Alaïa and Sybilla to design bags or travel pieces.
It did an encore in 2014 when the French luxury goods giant gave carte blanche to several iconoclasts — among them Karl Lagerfeld, Frank Gehry and Cindy Sherman — to try their hand at bags and luggage in the supple, yet highly resistant material.
Now as the Monogram marks its 130th anniversary, Vuitton is plotting a full-court press throughout 2026 around the motif’s origins, when the founder’s son Georges deposited a sample square at The Paris Archives in 1896.
“It was really that act in 1896 that created the brand that it is today,” marveled Pietro Beccari, Vuitton’s chairman and chief executive officer. “Yet there’s always more to discover, and more to do around this canvas. It’s like a holy grail of Louis Vuitton.”
From Jan. 1, all Vuitton windows globally will display reproductions of the original Monogram patent, complete with its sealing wax, and reproductions of the historic wooden Monogram stamp. Inside, Vuitton boutiques will showcase special-edition anniversary collections, backed by dedicated campaigns, pop-ups and other animations and surprises.
A certificate to renew the registration of the Monogram canvas, circa 1905.
Courtesy of Louis Vuitton
“I think people are seeking meaning, and reasons to adhere to a brand,” Beccari told WWD. “They want to know more about the product, what’s behind, what is the savoir-faire.”
The anniversary “gives us the chance to explain one of the symbols of Louis Vuitton to new generations, and give a reason for buying this product,” he said in an interview. “They should know they can pass it to the next generation, and that it will always represent one of the most luxurious brands in the world.”
To be sure, the Monogram is synonymous with many of Vuitton’s most iconic and perennially popular bags, including the Speedy and Keepall styles, both created in 1930; the Noé, designed in 1932 to carry five bottles of Champagne; the Alma in 1992, considered a tribute to Parisian architecture, and the roomy Neverfull tote in 2007, which has developed its own cult following and is engineered to carry up to 200 pounds of stuff.
“I think these names are mythical and they were all born dressed in the canvas that we are speaking about,” Beccari said.
A worker positions Monogram Origine canvas for a Speedy 20.
Courtesy of Louis Vuitton
Vuitton has readied three anniversary ranges, all of which arrive in stores early in 2026:
- The Monogram Origine line of handbags and trunks interprets the original 1896 pattern in a linen and cotton blend jacquard weave. This new coated canvas comes in the historic dark brown color and four pastel shades. According to Vuitton, the collection also draws inspiration from the cover of a 1908 client register.
- The VVN collection takes the pale-colored, natural cowhide that always trims Monogram bags and makes it the main material, which develops a unique patina over time and use. The Monogram appears on detachable name tags and a jacquard inner lining of the bags. (VVN is the acronym for the French term vache végétal naturel.)
- The Time Trunk collection employs trompe-l’œil printing to reproduce the textures and metallic details of historic Vuitton trunks on its Speedy 30 Soft, Noé and Alma GM bags. The bags were first unveiled at the fall 2018 show of Nicolas Ghesquière, artistic director of Vuitton’s women’s collections, and reprised for fall 2024 when the French designer celebrated a decade at the house.
The Noé VVN in unprocessed calf leather.
Courtesy of Louis Vuitton
A sacrosanct brand emblem, so much so that artisans strive to never cut the LV initials and position them with precision on each product, Vuitton began loosening up around surface treatments of the Monogram when its first creative director, Marc Jacobs, invited Stephen Sprouse to tag canvas bags with his neon graffiti art.
Beccari called that pioneering 2001 collaboration “like an act of genius because it opened up a world of possibilities.”
Indeed, all subsequent designers at Vuitton have given their own twist to the Monogram. Ghesquière, for example, introduced a “Dune” version inspired by the colors of sand, and Kim Jones a vivid red take as part of a 2017 collaboration with Supreme.
Virgil Abloh experimented with kaleidoscopic treatments plus transparent and eco-felt versions, while Pharrell Williams introduced a leather Speedy in primary colors that retails for around 9,250 euros — and has spawned a waiting list of more than 5,000 names.
“Everybody falls in love with this symbol of Vuitton and the catwalk is always a volcano of inspiration that makes it come alive, and stay young and modern,” Beccari enthused.
In 2017, the brand introduced Monogram Eclipse canvas, described as a “masculine interpretation” in deep graphite and black tones.
Vuitton’s high-profile collaborations with artists including Takashi Murakami, Yayoi Kusama and Richard Prince have all touched on the Monogram, but the 2026 celebration gives the floor to heritage elements, durability and functionality.
A high trunk in woven Monogram canvas from 1900.
Courtesy of Louis Vuitton
At Vuitton’s large-scale “Visionary Journeys” exhibition in Osaka over the summer during the World Expo, Beccari said the Monogram room — displaying the original square alongside historic trunks and modern iterations — was one of the most popular. “It gave us the idea to reinforce this link,” he said.
The origins of the Monogram and its flower-like symbols remain “mysterious,” according to Beccari. “Is it Gothic? Is it from Venice? Is it from Japan? Is it from the kitchen tiles in Asnières (the former Vuitton family home)?”
To be sure, Georges Vuitton dreamed up the Monogram canvas for trunks as “something that nobody can copy,” since the previous stripes and Damier checks had been widely imitated, Beccari related.
“In any case, it was done just to differentiate himself from the others, and it ended up being one of the most copied things in the world,” he said, chuckling at the paradox.
(That said, Vuitton takes counterfeiting seriously and about 50 people work to combat fakes, whose production is frequently associated with money laundering and child labor, Beccari noted.)
The back-to-the-roots approach of the anniversary year spills over into one of Vuitton’s forthcoming campaigns, which will spotlight vintage Monogram bags, exalting the character and patina they acquire after frequent use. It breaks on Jan. 1.
“Bags that lived, that have a story to tell,” Beccari said. “That’s a peculiarity of Louis Vuitton: Vuitton is not a bag that you put in your cupboard, or add to your collection, or something you wear once in a while. It’s a bag that you wear every day and that you have the pleasure to preserve and hand down to the next generation.”
An image from the Monogram Icons campaign featuring well-loved bags.
Courtesy of Louis Vuitton
The pre-loved bags in the new ads were retrieved from Vuitton’s archives, and care and repair centers, which are popular. “We are talking about hundreds of thousands of pieces that we repair every year,” Beccari said.
A second campaign, due out in February, is to focus on celebrities who are devotees of Monogram bags, but their names are still under wraps.
Vuitton expects its special-edition Monogram products to be collectible, and each bag comes with a name tag that doubles as a cardholder, and an inside label demarcating it as part of an anniversary collection.
The brand has also applied its Monogram Origine pattern to three of its fragrances, along with two travel cases in pink and blue colors.
Three pop-ups dedicated to Monogram are to debut Jan. 8 in Shanghai’s Xuhui district, at Vuitton’s SoHo store in New York City, and at its Dosan location in Seoul. More pop-ups are to be unveiled from March, along with other “surprises,” Beccari teased.
Tina Turner
Courtesy of Louis Vuitton
