Vegas Magazine - Niche Media - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/124284
continued from page 105 zanine was the Malle Casino, an exquisite example of the custom work produced in the Asnières workshop. Designed to stand upright, the Malle Casino opens to reveal a working roulette wheel in the top section, while drawers below house playing cards, poker chips, dice, even a professional green gaming felt. Patrick-Louis notes that, like any special order, the Malle Casino required that the Asnières craftsmen raise their game, so to speak. "With each new idea, each new special order," he ABOVE: An artisan says, "you must reconsider your savoir faire, precisely places the because each project is a new challenge." handles on a Vuitton trunk. RIGHT: The custom Wait a minute: Until very recently? you ask. and personalization While the Malle Casino was originally consection of Vuitton's Crystals boutique. ceived as a showpiece—a Las Vegas– specific example of the stratospheric heights of craft that could be achieved in Asnières—one customer apparently could not live without it. Louis Vuitton execs demur when asked the price, but artisans are already building a replacement, which will be welcomed onto the CityCenter mezzanine sometime this fall. Sharing space on that mezzanine is another category that's grown in importance for Vuitton in recent years: jewelry. The glass cases were designed not only to house the brand's growing selection of watches and fine jewelry, but also so Las Vegas would become a requisite stop when the high- contains one-of-a-kind items meant to showcase the house's artistry.) As on jewelry pieces made their global rounds. (Like the that monogrammed canvas, here again you see the codes of the house, custom trunks, the high-jewelry collection often with the signature flowers or LV logo interpreted in diamonds or adorning the face of a status watch. Among the high-jewelry pieces, a standout is a yellow- and white-diamond choker, its graphic design seemingly abstract, until you realize that the artisans have duplicated a Paris street map, with yellow diamonds where the monuments would be. Vuitton once partnered with outside workshops to craft its jewelry, but newly created jewelry workshops above Paris's Place Vendôme boutique, which opened last year, have rendered that unnecessary. "You cannot ask a designer to design and then send the design out and have it made elsewhere, because it's not the same mood, it's not the same spirit," says Hamdi Chatti, Louis Vuitton's director of fine jewelry and watches. "The designer and the workshop have to work together because everything is about this beautiful stone. It requires patience and passion because it's a long process. But at the same time, there are beautiful surprises." Back in Asnières, a descendant of Louis Vuitton not only understands this attitude more than most, he's also confident that it will continue with future generations: Patrick-Louis has two grandsons, both of whom have shown a keen interest in the watercolor case he built from scratch. He Louis smiles as he thinks of them and speaks of the Vuitton métier, Vuitton's gleaming employing a favorite phrase used yesterday, today, and in all exterior at likelihood tomorrow: "Here, everything is possible." V Crystals. This year marks the 25th anniversary of the company's presence in Las Vegas. 106 PHOTOGRAPHY BY DAVID FRANZEN (INTERIOR); ANTOINE ROZES (ARTISAN); COURTESY OF LOUIS VUITTON (EXTERIOR) TASTEMAKER VEGASMAGAZINE.COM 104-106_V_SS_TasteMaker_MAY/JUNE_13.indd 106 4/19/13 3:40 PM