Marc Jacobs' Work Featured in Upcoming Museum Exhibition

There is no denying the recent surge in fashion-art collaborations. This summer, in addition to the hit Alexander McQueen exhibit at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, there are a variety of shows being put on at major galleries honoring fashion designers' and their work. From Jean Paul Gaultier to Yohji Yamamoto, clothing is moving away from its mercantile roots and toward something more substantial, in terms of cultural significance. It's hard to put together a roster of today's biggest fashion design phenoms without including America's very own Marc Jacobs. From season to season, his shows are vividly creative and beautifully constructed mash-ups of pop culture and imaginative enterprise. Along with designing his own eponymous label and his diffusion line Marc by Marc Jacobs, the influential designer helped launch the first ready-to-wear collection for Louis Vuitton in 1997, transforming it into a major player in the world of apparel and beyond its history as a leather goods company.

Now, Les Arts Decoratifs in Paris announced a forthcoming show, slated for sometime next year, honoring the Louis Vuitton legacy, with a special focus on Jacobs' contributions to the brand. The museum's chief curator notes that the show will be broken into two parts -- one concentrating on the house's founder, Mr. Vuitton and his work as it related to the Industrial Revolution and Jacobs' reign, ushering a new era for the brand in the eye of contemporary fashion culture. We can only imagine that Jacobs, who is a huge fan of the arts and has an impressive collection himself, must be pleased.