Louis Vuitton X Supreme: the mysterious end to the pop-ups

By

Lucile Deprez

Translated by
Susan Spies

Published
Jul 20, 2017

One of the most anticipated collaborations of the year seems to have been a victim of its success. In both the United States and France, there is not a trace of the Louis Vuitton X Supreme pop-ups, which had been scheduled to sell the products of the partnership until July 27.

Just two weeks after their opening, the temporary boutiques featuring the fruits of the Louis Vuitton and Supreme collab have closed their doors in France and in the United States, well before the scheduled date. No reason was given by the French house and the pieces are no longer available.

The Paris address located at 10 rue Boucher in the 1st arrondissement is now totally empty and it is hard to imagine the frenzy that reigned there only a few days ago. Sales associates from nearby stores saw the commotion first hand.

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At Pull&Bear, located just across the street, a saleswoman explained: “It was crazy. People were lining up for hours and then some of them stood outside our store windows to resell the products they had just bought. We could see money changing hands. This event gave the brand a very bad image."

Another sales associate at Bershka had a similar description. Asked about why he thinks the store might have closed, he said: "I think they sold everything, a lot of people were queuing at 5 a.m. to be among the first for the opening at 9 a.m.” Rather than the planned 30 days, the Paris pop-up seems to have been opened a total of three days, according to store personnel in the vicinity. A customer service representative from one of the Paris Louis Vuitton stores also confirmed that the pop-up had been opened three days, saying that there is no longer any means of obtaining any of the pieces from the collaboration. However, GQ reports that some VIP customers have managed to get some Louis Vuitton X Supreme products.

The Financial Times says that items were offered on third-party sites at amounts ranging from 1.5 to 5 times the official price. One of the iconic silkscreen t-shirts of the collaboration was selling for $1,600, three times the price charged by Vuitton.

No official reason for the pop-ups closure has yet been announced. Was the brand owned by LVMH simply overwhelmed by the event (as feared by the Manhattan community commission, which rejected Louis Vuitton's request to install a pop-up in New York) to the point that it decided to shut down all sales? Perhaps Louis Vuitton was not happy about the explosion of a black market in plain sight, or did it in fact really sell all the pieces?

Contacted by Hypebeast, a Louis Vuitton customer service rep said that, "unfortunately, the collection will no longer be sold, neither in the shops nor online.” The luxury label has not yet responded to queries from Fashion Network.