THE wait is finally over.
The collection by French luxury house Louis Vuitton and Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama — which covers ready-to-wear, leather goods, accessories and fragrances is finally here.
Last month, "Women's Wear Daily" reported on the collection, calling it "its most extensive collaboration with a fine artist to date".
The brand used famous faces — Gisele Bündchen, Liya Kebede, Devon Aoki, Christy Turlington and Anok Yai — captured by Steven Meisel, with carriers bearing Kusama's signature: polka dots.
Executive vice-president Delphine Arnault described the collaboration as "a meeting of two like-minded design studios and workshops obsessed with perfection in concept, execution and craft."
Known for her hypnotic and colourful works, the artist and novelist was born to a family of merchants in Japan in 1929.
Experiencing visual and auditory hallucinations since childhood, she translated these experiences into art with her first creations of net and polka-dot patterned sketches and paintings.
Kusama travelled to the United States to hone and discover the artistic philosophy of self-obliteration via the repetition and multiplication of single motifs, emerging as a precursor to Pop and Minimal art and one of the world's most successful living, female artists.
She met Louis Vuitton creative director Marc Jacobs at her studio in 2006, presenting him with an Ellipse bag that she had painted over with her signature dots.
That meeting sparked the Louis Vuitton and Yayoi Kusama partnership, first launched in 2012, seen through products, exhibitions and window installations.
One decade on, this relationship continues.
In Tokyo and Paris, Kusama and Louis Vuitton designers worked together to deliver a collection that exudes her creative energy while displaying exceptional workmanship through printing and embellishment techniques.
It employs 3D serigraphy and exquisite leather marquetry, subtle jacquard and complex embroideries, laser on denim and delicate enameling.
* Drop 2 of the collection will go live on March 31.