Louis Vuitton’s sneakers draws from a past model—literally.
The striking Spring-Summer 2021 LV Trainer Upcycling collection breathes new life into the original high-top LV Trainer that walked down the runway at Virgil Abloh’s debut Spring-Summer 2019 show.
The original trainers have been disassembled and transformed to produce new and unique silhouettes. As a result, no two pairs of the youthful shoe are exactly the same, nor totally different.
Inspired by old-school basketball sneakers, the calfskin and suede low-top trainers are available in five bright shades—pink, red, yellow, green, and blue—and boast playful tie-dye laces. Each shoe features ‘LV Upcycling’ edged on the back, a padded collar, the signature LV logo, and Monogram flowers on the sole. A fun fluorescent tag is found on the right foot.
Luxury With a Conscience
With a bold and artistic allure, the splurge-worthy Louis Vuitton sneakers come with a well-received backstory. They are the innovative result of a unique and highly circular creative production process developed with Louis Vuitton’s dedicated shoe workshop in Fiesso d’Artico, Italy. The collection was created according to a detailed sustainable upcycling strategy aimed to optimize the use of existing materials. Naturally, this doesn’t mean a deviation from quality; the iconic fashion house’s careful craftsmanship is reflected in every detail.
Those wondering exactly how it’s done will get the rundown with their new footwear purchase, thanks to assembly instructions for centering and cutting, hand-applied on leather. The shoe also comes with excess stitching threads, allowing the owner to cut them to add a final customized touch.
The new trainers align with Abloh’s “upcycling ideology” for the Spring-Summer 2021 collection and with Louis Vuitton’s commitment to imagine innovative creative circularities to extend the sustainability of its products. Louis Vuitton is arguably one of the fashion industry’s most formidable forces and the debut of its upcycling collection may be a sign of the luxury sector’s move into (hopefully) a more sustainable direction.
