The hoarding of its New York store is a sight to behold

Louis Vuitton does not do things in small measures or discreetly, less so when they set up a new store to impress. On the site of their New York 57th Street flagship, LV is building a new tower that reportedly will at least double its existing retail space and, no doubt, augment its presence on what is known as Billionaire’s Row, near the southern end of Central Park. But rather than the usual hoarding to conceal the construction work within, the French brand has built a façade in the form a stack of sized-for-King-Kong LV trunks, complete with handles and latches, and locks, just like the real deal.

The structure has come at the right time. At night, it is lit and could pass off as a Christmas attraction. It truly commands attention, so much so that it has become a tourist site in itself, attracting locals and visitors alike. The usually custom-made trunks on their own reportedly cost anything between US$35, 000 (or about S$46,342) and US$60,000. LV has not revealed the price of the extravagant installation, except that it is designed in-house. Unsurprisingly, there are those not impressed with it, thinking that a hoarding this bombastic is unnecessary and a waste of money—marketing cost that would be reflected in the retail pricing, already considered too high.

This is not the first of LV’s grandiose structural impermanence. In Paris, on the Champs-Élysées, a similar, but not-as-tall hoarding was stretched out to resemble a single trunk in September 2023. It was not met with an enthusiastic reception. Some are questioning the legality of the structure, as well as the total cover of the building it’s refurbishing (apparently, there would be a Louis Vuitton hotel on the site). Some city folks consider it nothing more than a giant billboard, which, even with the LV branding, is vulgaire. Across the Atlantic, however, the hoarding is better appreciated, at least by the pedestrians seen these past nights, who stopped to marvel at it and take photos of the ‘trunks’ plonked in the middle of their city.

Photo: HL See for SOTD