Louis Vuitton’s flat trunk
The flat-topped trunk that could be stacked in the holds of trains and steamships – the start of a fashion house.
Louis Vuitton came to Paris as a teenager and learned to pack and make trunks for the fashionable. He opened his own workshop in 1854, and a few years later he launched a trunk with a flat lid and waterproof grey canvas, the Trianon.
Older trunks had domed lids so that rainwater would run off. Flat trunks could be stacked on trains and ships, and they became the new standard for travel. Vuitton is now one of the world’s largest luxury brands.
Materials: Poplar frame, cotton or linen canvas, leather, brass
Manufacture: Made by hand in Louis Vuitton’s workshop at Asnières outside Paris from the late 1850s.
The flat lid, instead of the domed lid of earlier trunks.
The wooden slats around it and the brass corner fittings.
The canvas treated to repel water.