With the NBA Finals kicking off this week, the league has launched its latest extensive collaboration with the iconic French fashion house, celebrating the NBA’s 75th anniversary.
For the third straight season, the NBA and Louis Vuitton have teamed up to create an elevated series of staple items from the luxury brand’s luggage lineup of duffel bags, backpacks, and accessories.
Initially partnering in 2020 under the direction of menswear artistic director Virgil Abloh, the latest collection incorporates rich blue hues from the Association’s logo as the base color atop each item, accented by hits of red and white as basketball channel lines, all as a nod to the NBA’s 75th anniversary season.
According to the brand, the collection draws inspiration from the principles that the late Abloh had initially outlined for the partnership, infusing “an appetite for challenge, team spirit, messages of camaraderie, and universality.”
The full lineup of items includes Louis Vuitton’s classic Christopher backpack, full size Keepall 55, oft-coveted Trunk, Dopp Kit and Pocket Organizer. Two new additions to the collection are highlighted by a watch carrying case that can house up to eight timepieces, along with the brand’s Malle Courrier bag for the first time.
Each piece is crafted in an “LV” monogram-embossed electric blue Taurillon leather, with a basketball graphic and official NBA logo rounding out the collaborative design.
In addition to the full range of collaboration items, Louis Vuitton has designed and crafted a new Official Travel Trunk to house the league’s championship Larry O’Brien Trophy.
Pulling from the dimensions and detailing found in LV trunks for over 160 years, the case incorporates the brand’s traditional brown monogram canvas design along the exterior, with a royal blue microfibre interior and brass hardware throughout to complement the trophy inside. The case was fully constructed by hand just outside of Paris at Louis Vuitton’s longtime Asnières atelier.
Ahead of the 75th anniversary season, the NBA and Tiffany & Co. opted to re-design the range of player awards trophies handed out after the regular season. While the individual awards trophies and new Conference Finals MVP awards took on a new look, the championship trophy itself didn’t stray too far from tradition. The lines along the ball and net are now highlighted and accented in silver, bringing more dimension to the historically tonal gold trophy.
“The trophy is a symbol of the pinnacle of this journey that these athletes go on,” designer Victor Solomon told Boardroom. “The object that should celebrate that journey deserves to be as thoughtful and innovative as the guys who are receiving it.”
As the Warriors and Celtics continue to battle it out on the hardwood, newly reimagined and elevated hardware awaits the victor, housed inside of a hand-painted ‘V’ emblazoned Louis Vuitton trunk, to round out the latest chapter of the NBA and LV’s partnership.
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