When Louis Vuitton’s grandson Gaston Vuitton designed the Keepall bag in 1930, he was responding to the needs of the early-20th-century traveler. As a flexible and lightweight counterpart to the wooden-framed trunks on which his grandfather’s luggage empire was built, the Keepall allowed for functional storage in a more transportable form.
The bag has become an enduring symbol of the house, reintroduced in a multitude of colors and prints over the decades. Few of the iterations are as coveted in the secondary market as those designed by the late Virgil Abloh, who issued a veritable rainbow of Keepalls for Louis Vuitton. Among them is this luminous PVC Prism Keepall 50 Bandoulière from the Spring/Summer 2019 menswear collection.
The original, brown monogram Keepall remains a staple for the aesthetically minded traveler, but the Prism version offers collectors an eye-catching alternative. Through Abloh’s lens, the weekender was transformed into light itself, crafted from semitransparent, iridescent PVC, with clear handles, acrylic chain details and a lustrous bandolier shoulder strap.
“It’s a glistening spectrum of colors,” says Maya Ali, of myGemma Handbags, which is offering the piece on 1stDibs. “Virgil honored the classic silhouette but put his twist on it. The bag’s sheen makes it so that the monogram is visible only on closer inspection.” This clever subversion of the brand’s typical logo-centric approach is quintessential Abloh, who was widely regarded as one of fashion’s great disruptors during his time at Louis Vuitton and at his own cult-favorite label, Off-White.
Abloh’s oeuvre for Louis Vuitton is celebrated for its playful and poignant approach to fashion, and the Prism bag, which was part of the final look of his first collection for the house, is an exploration of color and light. It shines among the ranks of special-edition bags created by other Vuitton designers, including Marc Jacobs, Nicolas Ghesquière and the brand’s current menswear director, Pharrell Williams.
This prismatic reimagining of the Keepall has done well at major auction houses around the world, enjoying the same esteem accorded the highly collectible pieces from Vuitton’s limited collaborations with Takashi Murakami, Yayoi Kusama, Stephen Sprouse and the NBA, a partnership Abloh oversaw.
Why are Abloh’s designs so revered? As for so many artists and designers whose careers were cut tragically short, the scarcity of surviving examples drives higher demand. Abloh’s output at Louis Vuitton was relatively small, consisting of only eight collections created before his death, in 2021 at age 41.
“There was such anticipation leading up to Virgil’s reign at Louis Vuitton, and he was so successful in his time. But his designs are no longer in production,” says Ali. “His pieces are sought-after on the resale market, and most buyers tend to hold on to them as heirlooms, as they know the chance of coming across them again is close to none.”
In addition to offering the excellent functionality of the Keepall, this slightly trippy example embodies the vibrant innovation and joyful spirit of one of fashion’s visionaries at the height of his career. By rendering the Keepall in such an unexpected material, Abloh created a colorful new identity for it that Gaston Vuitton would scarcely recognize — one that would certainly bring some excitement to the line at airport security.
