Born in 1883, Gaston-Louis Vuitton, Louis Vuitton’s grandson, not only participated in his grandfather’s trunk making business, he was also a passionate world traveler who might easily have caught a glimpse of Jacques Henri Lartigue’s slender silhouette while in France on one of his numerous trips there. Both men were lovers of new frontiers; while Gaston-Louis travelled abroad, Lartigue, at the dawn of the automobile era, adored driving through France. During his adventurous getaways, Gaston-Louis amassed a collection of over 3,000 hotel publicity stickers and labels from luxurious hotels – La Mamounia in Marrakech, The Savoy in London, The Peninsula in Hong Kong… -the types of labels that globetrotters would proudly affix to their luggage. The labels’ graphic representations of the hotels, their typography, and their colors evoke an era when travel was synonymous with an art of living.
World Tour visits 21 stopovers around the globe, stopovers that reflect the favorite destinations and pursuits of cosmopolitan travelers, including seaside stays on the French Riviera, skiing in Chamonix or Zermatt….
A selection of Lartigue’s photographs is included in the book, published in English by Abrams, in which Francisca Mattéoli explores the Vuitton heir’s travels around the world.
