LV Store
SPECULATIVE DESIGN
Every year 1.7 tonnes of CO2 are released into the atmosphere when counterfeit bags are being burned in the landfills of Madrid. Counterfeit bags are made from notoriously harmful and toxic materials, undergoing a short and unsustainable lifecycle before being incinerated.
These issues come together in our design solution, for which the Louis Vuitton store in Madrid was reimagined. Located in the same place as the original store, this redesign has the sole function of repurposing and reusing counterfeited bags, while still providing an access point for customers. The counterfeit bags, upon entering the store, first go to the Intellectual Property director. This figure determines which of Louis Vuitton's IP laws are being infringed on, and what needs to change in order for the bags to be resold. Then it goes to the creative director – who takes the feedback provided from the IP directors and designs a new bag with regards to the information.
Glass tubes function to aid this process, such as transporting the bags from the lower to the upper floor – which is home to the dismantling team. Materials from the counterfeits are separated based on plastics, metals, glues, and pleather. Acetone vats fitted inside some of the tubes serve to dissolve the cheap glues inside the counterfeit bags. Finally, the dismantled materials make their way back down to the ground floor, where a team of creatives work hard to recombine these materials into resellable bag designs. This is a complex process which can only work well with some kind of guidelines, so we created a catalogue as a rule book for the how store functions. The catalogue shows the changes made to the counterfeited Louis Vuitton bags, and the resulting decrease in harmful substances shown in their pollution maps.
Our store proposal is a radical solution for the future counterfeit industry, tackling luxury in an innovative and sustainable way. Through the reclaiming of this industry, Louis Vuitton, representing the luxury industry, takes responsibility for an issue which, though not innately their fault, wouldn’t exist without them all the same.