Louis Vuitton x NBA Capsule Collection II New Release

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In 2020, Louis Vuitton announced a three-year partnership with the National Basketball Association, fusing Vuitton’s iconic French luxury with American sports heritage. Now, the highly anticipated second installment of the collaboration is here. For Pre-Fall 2021, the capsule explores the collective memories of the two institutions throughout the height of basketball mania in the 1990s in a transversal celebration of pop culture, fashion, and sports.

Vuitton’s Men’s Artistic Director Virgil Abloh once again demonstrates his unmatchable creativity by translating this tribute into design by creating a collection that embodies the three wardrobes of a basketball player: travel, game, and press conference. The collection is comprised of casualwear manifested through quilted jackets and pants adorned with the Vuitton floral motifs, varsity-inspired styles like bomber jackets with graphic patterns reminiscent of basketball jackets, and signature Vuitton bags embellished with mesh detailing inspired by basketball hoops. A tribute to the jewelry worn by basketball players in the 1990s, chain necklaces are supersized to extra-large dimensions. Similarly, a ring adorned with the LV x NBA logos mimics the championship rings central to the culture of the game. The ultimate emblem of the LV x NBA union, Vuitton’s first-ever basketballs are made available in a 29.5″ life-size version, as well as the 5.11″ small-scale collector’s item sold with a hoop mounted on a backboard akin to the Houses’ trunk.

Select pieces in the collection were conceived alongside the designer Don Crawley, an expert within the space of unifying design and sport. Crawley collaborated on a blouson, shorts and a Keepall adorned with the game’s iconography and the collection’s emblematic basketball and hoop objects.

The Louis Vuitton x NBA Capsule Collection II will be available in stores worldwide on Friday, May 28th. And keep scrolling to get an inside look into the collection and experience basketball nostalgia.

Photo Credit: Louis Vuitton

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Under the steer of creative director Virgil Abloh, Louis Vuitton has done a lot of New Things. It’s still very much a Paris brand, the sort with a kiss to both cheeks and very, very small but delicious lunches. But Vuitton has evolved. It looks for new wells to drill, marking an era of increased diversity not just in its captainship but in the clothes it presents and the big, properly impressive, spectacle runway shows it produces. And for a second time, Louis Vuitton is looking to the basketball court for its pre-fall 2021 collection.

Titled LVxNBA Men’s Collection, Louis Vuitton has taken a deep dive into basketball’s Nineties era for a line that focuses on three key wardrobes: travel, game, and press conference. What’s more, several pieces were designed in conjunction with Don Crawley, a veteran that has much experience in fusing design and sport.

RENELL MEDRANO

So what does that look like, exactly? The LVxNBA Men’s Collection has lots of long basketball shorts as you’d expect (which is great, because wider, looser shorts are not only back with a vengeance via Jacquemus and Dickies, but also mad, mad comfy). But there’s also hi-graphic co-ords, leather varsity jackets, travel bags (monogrammed, naturally) and the odd bit of tailoring. Which, essentially, is the stuff that takes world class NBA players from court to Learjet to staccato Q&As, just as Abloh intended.

It’s another collection in which Louis Vuitton melds the high fashion and the pop cultural. Only rarely has basketball been an influence of designer’s upper echelons. But as someone who knows and loves the sport (Abloh is said to have watched MJ hoop back in his Chicago Bulls days, and even debuted his own take on the Air Jordan 5 through his own brand Off-White early last year), there’s something inherently natural about the collection. It’s not a forced collaboration, or a cynical opportunity to capitalise on an ever popular sport. The shoe – or the sneaker, at least – fits.

Available online now at louisvuitton.com

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