Happy are those who travel. Just ask the passengers of the Vuitton Express! July 19, 2011, the Louis Vuitton Express train pulled in to Shanghai after a long trek that had started in Paris several months earlier. This trip is all too reminiscent of the Great Peking to Paris Expedition, undertaken on foot through the Gobi desert with a hefty stock of Vuitton trunks in tow. This most recent expedition had more of a fashionable vibe; it was to celebrate the opening of Louis Vuitton’s very first flagship Maison store in China, located in Shanghai’s Plaza 66.
Keeping with the train theme, the Fall/Winter 2012-2013 ready-to-wear collection was presented in front of an identical reproduction of a 19th century steam engine train. Accented by treasure chest props, the runway show was signed off on by none other than Marc Jacobs. The models themselves unloaded one by one from the train cars, as bellboys scrambled to take care of their LV-branded luggage. All of this was to the amazement of a crowd of stars, both Western and Chinese: Alexa Chung, Laetitia Casta, Lana Del Rey, Gong Li, and Fan Bingbing to name a few.
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