Trunks, Tea, and Time Travel

There’s a certain romance to travel that no first-class lounge or brushed-metal passport holder can ever quite capture.

It’s not about where you're going, or even how you get there, but what you carry with you. The patina of memory. The feel of heritage. The whisper of hands that made something by hand.

This is the spirit animating Visionary Journeys, Louis Vuitton’s deeply personal exhibition staged at the Nakanoshima Museum of Art in Osaka.

Timed to coincide with the World Expo Osaka Kansai 2025 and marking the 170th anniversary of the House, the exhibition doesn’t just chart a timeline; it opens a portal.

Not to the past, but to something deeper: a meditation on why we make, why we move, and how the two are forever intertwined.

Curated by fashion historian Florence Müller and designed by Shohei Shigematsu of OMA, the space itself feels more like an experience than an exhibit.

You don’t “view” it so much as move through it, like a traveller passing through a series of poetic customs.

There are over 1,000 objects here, trunks, sketches, garments, artefacts of intention, 200 of which speak directly to Louis Vuitton’s long and layered relationship with Japan.

But these are not objects to gawk at. They are clues. Love letters. Footnotes to a story that’s still unfolding.

Louis Vuitton has never been just about luggage. It has been about the idea of the journey; elegant, yes, but also curious, inventive, open to surprise.

That ethos finds resonance in Japan, where the reverence for craft and continuity runs deep.

It’s no coincidence that some of Vuitton’s most memorable collaborations, like Murakami’s technicolour reverie, Kusama’s hypnotic infinity, Rei Kawakubo’s deconstructionist poetry, have sprung from this cultural kinship.

But Visionary Journeys doesn’t just celebrate past icons. It peels back the curtain on the present. Visitors are given rare access to atelier life, with bespoke trunks created for Louis Vuitton ambassador Sho Hirano and Osaka-born creative Verdy on display.

These are modern heirlooms in the making; new chapters in a story written not in ink, but in stitch and silhouette.

In one room, a Steamer bag rests under soft light, its curves worn smooth by time. In another, the meticulous geometry of a classic trunk reveals its hidden genius.

Throughout, the exhibition reminds us: true luxury isn’t loud. It doesn’t scream for attention. It whispers to those who know what to listen for.

Visionary Journeys offers perspective. It asks us not what we want to own, but what we want to remember. How we want to travel, not across the world, but through life. With intention. With reverence. With stories worth carrying.