With its eighth Artycapucines Collection, Louis Vuitton translates Keith Haring’s visual language into 13 bags, giving the energy of his drawings a new form.
A heart has grown legs. It sets off as though it can hardly wait for its next encounter. Keith Haring’s “Running Heart” needs only a few lines to spark something: movement, affection, perhaps the urge to run alongside it. This immediacy runs through the artist’s work. It also gives Louis Vuitton’s new Keith Haring Artycapucines Collection its appeal.
Working closely with the Keith Haring Foundation, the Maison dedicates the eighth chapter of its Artycapucines series to the artist, who died in 1990. Thirteen reinterpretations of the Capucines draw on his motifs: the “Running Heart”, the “Radiant Baby”, dancing figures, animals and graphic compositions. Images that have long been familiar to many, yet whose impact goes beyond recognition.
A few lines, and everything moves
Haring’s figures have no detailed faces. Their bodies speak through gestures, their surroundings through short strokes. An arm rises, a body bends, a baby radiates. We often understand these images before we stop to think about them.
In 1980s New York, Haring also found his audience on subway platforms. Using white chalk, he drew on the black paper covering unused advertising spaces. His art met people on their journeys, in the midst of everyday life. That direct relationship with an audience was central to his work.
The lightness of his visual language could carry serious concerns. Haring used his art to raise awareness of AIDS and oppose apartheid, among other causes. Joy and social engagement sit close together in his work. His figures remind us how much a gesture can express: closeness, vulnerability, solidarity.
The drawing takes shape
On the Capucines, the relationship between image and surface changes. Leather has its own texture; a bag has volume. Here, a line needs to remain legible across a three-dimensional form, while a motif meets us from different angles.
For the collection, Louis Vuitton uses techniques ranging from traditional leather marquetry to advanced laser printing. This is where the encounter becomes particularly interesting from a design perspective: Haring’s seemingly effortless drawings become the starting point for an intricate translation through craft. What matters is whether their rhythm remains palpable.
The collection also continues a dialogue Nicolas Ghesquière began with his Cruise 2027 collection, presented at New York’s Frick Collection in May 2026. Haring’s imagery keeps travelling through different materials, forms and contexts.
A heart keeps running
Since Artycapucines made its debut in 2019, more than 35 contemporary artists have used the Capucines as a creative surface. The series has produced over 50 designs, including works by Takashi Murakami, Beatriz Milhazes, Daniel Buren and Vik Muniz.
The new chapter focuses on a visual language whose energy still reaches us directly. A running heart remains a strange and lovely image: feelings suddenly have feet. And we want to know where they are heading.
The 13 models in the Keith Haring Artycapucines Collection will be available as limited editions in Louis-Vuitton-Boutiques worldwide from 1 January 2027.
