Saillard approached Louis Vuitton project with 'a sense of fantasy'

Where did the title of the exhibition come from? I found this advert from the 1960s with its giant V, which comes across more like a slogan from the 1930s. It seemed to me that it would fit very well, because it expresses not only the notion of travel in its formal terms, but also the idea of dreaming.

The idea for the exhibition came from Bernard Arnault himself, who expressed to me his wish to organise a major retrospective at the Grand Palais dedicated to the house of Louis Vuitton. He suggested that I might like to curate it, and gave me carte blanche. I recently found a text from the Universal Exhibition of 1900 on the theme of travel: in one of the pavilions, visitors could sit in rocking chairs imitating the motion of an ocean liner, they even had water sprayed in their faces. Elsewhere, they could sit as if on a train, with images moving past the windows.

What can a visitor to the exhibition expect to experience? I would like them to feel as if they had been travelling as if in a film, to have doubts about the reality of what they have seen. Truth can often be stranger than fiction. If we wrote a screenplay today with a 13-year-old boy leaving his family to walk to Paris, people would say it was completely unrealistic. There is a great film to be made about this family with its incredible lives, the twin brothers inventing helicopters and dying at war, Gaston and his ailments…

People forget that behind the names which have today become logos, real people existed. I wanted to look back at the inventor, the man who lived in this happy era when everything was there to be discovered. I like exhibitions that inspire you to create, and I wanted people to understand that creating trunks is a craft born of a fine personal initiative. I hope people will have the impression of a journey, a dream.

How did you divide up the different items? I very much like the section on the automobile, which showcases the flat trunks and auto trunks and their focus on sober refinement, containing wonderfully intricate picnic sets or tool kits. I wanted to feminise this space by presenting photos by Lartigue showing women behind the wheel, and a number of garments connected to automobile travel from the Palais Galliera museum archives.

On the plane – and we have a whole one – I placed bags from the 1920s and 30s in brown canvas, as well as the Malle Aéro, which underlines the importance of lighter luggage. In this section we present the twins Jean and Pierre Vuitton, inventors of prototypes of a small car, a helicopter and an aeroplane, all presented at the Grand Palais in 1901.

For the train, artistic director and set designer Robert Carsen created an actual wooden compartment, with images moving past the windows. Here we display the flat trunks, Gladstone or doctor’s bags. I found a women’s suit from the late 19th century in heavy canvas with trunk buckles closing the jacket, a very modern detail. This section also features designs by Marc Jacobs, who is of course part of the house’s history, and Gaston-Louis Vuitton’s collection of travel labels. 

Here we display the flat trunks, Gladstone or doctor’s bags. I found a women’s suit from the late 19th century in heavy canvas with trunk buckles closing the jacket, a very modern detail. This section also features designs by Marc Jacobs, who is of course part of the house’s history, and Gaston-Louis Vuitton’s collection of travel labels. 

How have you linked the past to the future? Bernard Arnault’s wish was to avoid presenting the past on one hand and the present day on the other, but to combine the two. This happened very naturally, through themes and shapes. I wanted to design the exhibition in a very formal way for those wishing to pass a diploma in trunks, but I also approached it with a sense of fantasy, as if Tintin was the curator, to appeal to a younger audience.

At the very beginning of the exhibition, we present a trunk from 1906 which brings together for the first time all the elements of the Vuitton identity: the wooden struts, the corners, the patent lock, the monogram canvas. It is presented alongside a Petite Malle bag by Nicolas Ghesquière in the same canvas, to make the link between past and present. Louis Vuitton has a rich history.

How has this influenced the design of the exhibition? My initial request was to be able to spend one day a week in the archives. Fifteen or 20 years ago, I had been to the archives, which were situated at the time in Asnières, and 
which already offered a nexus of information, but those which the house is lucky enough to have today are worthy of a major contemporary art museum. 
The amazing team there have succeeded in bringing together an astounding collection of trunks and objects, but also of paper documents: catalogues, postcards, stamps, ex libris labels.

Have you included any fashion attire in the exhibition? In a very refined 
manner. We have the trunks created for celebrities such as Greta Garbo, Katherine Hepburn and Elizabeth Taylor. A little cabinet brings together Art Déco toiletry kits with the perfumes released by Louis Vuitton at the time: Heure d’Absence, Je Tu Il, Eau de Voyage. There follows a section dedicated to masculine elegance, with trunks belonging to Charles de Bestegui or Paul Poiret, manufactured in the 1930s.

What is the one piece the visitor mustn’t miss? I had the Asnières ateliers remake a wardrobe trunk in white Epi leather, ordered by Jean Patou and used to transport clothes for his trunk shows. The exhibition is on from December 4-February 21 and admission is free. grandpalais.fr