It’s about time – the creative collaboration between French fashion house Louis Vuitton and Japanese pop artist Yayoi Kusama is going to be shown to the public in the form of an official collection. The partnership itself was inevitable, given Vuitton’s reputation of collaborating with contemporary artists like Stephen Sprouse and Takashi Murakami. 

Yayoi Kusama is known worldwide for her avant-garde style, and noted in particular for her signature polka dot patterns, which she obsessively puts on everything from large empty rooms to trees to everyday objects to body parts. 

Marc Jacobs, Louis Vuitton’s creative director, first met Kusama at her Tokyo studio in 2006. The collection sprouted from a Vuitton bag she presented him that she customised herself. The line will be extensive – with dots covering everything from coats to shirts to pajamas to bags. It seems like a good match indeed – Vuitton is not much different from Kusama the way it splashes its logo across each bag.

Click here for images from the collection.

"Her energy is just endless," Jacobs said in an interview with Vogue UK. "Through the painstaking sort of obsession in each of her canvasses and installations that she's created, you see this world that never ends. I guess that's what I admire and that's what I respond to in terms of feeling for her and for her work."

"It continues something I began when I came here which is the idea of art and collaboration, or collaboration with artists. For many people who don't look at art or go to galleries, or maybe they're not aware of Kusama's work, there will be a new venue, a new place to see this work and to come to appreciate it through the eyes of Louis Vuitton."

The collection is set to be unveiled on July 10, conveniently timed with Kusama’s major retrospective at the Whitney Museum in New York. The goods will be available in Vuitton’s 461 stores starting July 11, with a second line arriving in October.

More information on Kusama here.

Reach reporter Raunak Khosla here.