Skate & The City: the love story between Louis Vuitton and the skate It all started with a fight...

In the wide selection of products from Louis Vuitton's Watercoulour summer collection, there is also a very particular item: a 45,000€ made-to-order skateboard covered by the brand's monogram. And although it is true that in his years of tenure Virgil Abloh directed Louis Vuitton more decisively towards a skate aesthetic, for example by making Lucien Clarke one of the models of his debut show and then collaborating with him to create the brand's first skate sneaker, it is also true that Louis Vuitton's relationship with the skateboarding world did not begin with Abloh.

Rather, we should talk about an unusual love story, which intertwines the events of the brand with those of Supreme (in less obvious ways than their collaboration of 2017) and goes back more than a decade, anticipating the policy of artistic collaborations. Finally, Louis Vuitton's link with skateboarding can become a key to reading the entrance of streetwear in fashion starting from an initial hostility and ending with a total assimilation, symbolized by the made-to-order skate of the Watercolor collection.

«Cease-and-desist»

The final chapter (for now) of this love story is the arrival of Virgil Abloh. A designer who divides and divides into a thousand creative ramifications, precursor of a new aesthetic wave that defines fashion as we know it and that finally makes the concept of total collaboration institutional. His first fashion show for Louis Vuitton is an earthquake: Lucien Clarke and Blondey McCoy walked along with Octavian and Kid Cudi on the rainbow-colored catwalk in Paris. In the next fashion show it will be up to Evan Mock – the first springboard to a career in fashion for the Hawaiian skater. Last year Virgil and Lucien Clarke teamed up to create Louis Vuitton's first skate shoe. Finally, this year, the circle is completed: without collaborating with anyone else, Louis Vuitton produces its own skateboard. The curtain closes.