Monogram 130: Malle Secrétaire Bureau Stokowski

The Substance

• Dated to 1929, the Stokowski Secretary Trunk is a convertible travelling writing desk, highlighted by Louis Vuitton as a defining archival object within the Monogram 130th Anniversary programme.
• The trunk is presented under the full French title Malle Secrétaire Bureau Stokowski, reflecting its dual identity as luggage and functioning bureau.
• Narration for the campaign film is credited to writer Sophie Fontanel, whose voice frames a fictional backstage exchange set during a Vienna Philharmonic performance.
• The anniversary campaign is identified by Louis Vuitton as a revisiting of the Maison’s trunkmaking history, framed through what it calls its “Art of Travel”.
• The film runs 57 seconds and forms part of a broader series of heritage vignettes released under the #LVMonogram130 banner.

A Century of Trunkmaking, Revisited for the 130th Monogram Anniversary

Since its founding in 1854, Louis Vuitton has built its identity around the idea of travel as a form of cultivated living. The Monogram canvas, introduced in 1896, became the most visible expression of that philosophy, and its 130th anniversary has prompted the Maison to reach into its archive and surface objects that rarely receive the same attention as its ready-to-wear or small leather goods. The Stokowski Secretary Trunk is one such object, a piece from 1929 that turns the act of correspondence into a portable ritual.

For the anniversary campaign, Louis Vuitton frames the trunk not as a static museum piece but as an active participant in a life organised around movement. The Maison describes its trunk history through the concept of the “Art of Travel,” a phrase it uses to indicate luggage that was designed to be as functional as it was considered. The 1929 date places this trunk firmly in the interwar period, when long-distance travel by rail and ocean liner demanded objects capable of sustaining domestic routines far from home.

The campaign unfolds through a series of short films, each selecting a different archival trunk and building a narrative around its specific utility. This instalment centres on the secretary trunk, a category of furniture-as-luggage that allowed a traveller to maintain correspondence, manage scores, or review documents without requiring a fixed address. The choice to anchor the film in a musical backstage setting reinforces the idea that this trunk was conceived for people whose work and life were one continuous journey.

The 1929 Stokowski Secretary Trunk Up Close

The trunk takes its name from the character of Leopold Stokowski, a conductor whose fictional counterpart appears in the campaign film preparing to lead the Vienna Philharmonic. In the narrative, his companion Olga chooses to remain backstage with the secretary trunk desk rather than take her seat in the hall, a detail that underscores how the object was considered intimate enough to anchor a private moment in a public setting. The dialogue, scripted and voiced by Sophie Fontanel, positions the trunk as something closer to a companion than a piece of luggage.

What distinguishes the Malle Secrétaire Bureau from a standard travelling trunk is its convertible architecture. When opened, the case unfolds to reveal a writing surface, transforming it into a functional bureau. This configuration would have allowed a musician, a diplomat, or a writer to work in a train compartment or a dressing room without setting down a separate piece of furniture. The ingenuity of the design, referenced directly in the film’s dialogue, lies in the compactness of that transformation.

Louis Vuitton has not published technical specifications for the archival piece within this campaign, but the film makes clear that the trunk was designed for repeated, practical use rather than display. For collectors and trunk specialists in the Gulf, where the Maison maintains a strong presence across the Emirates and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the visibility of archival objects like this one signals a renewed interest in the Maison’s historical catalogue alongside its contemporary production.

Sophie Fontanel and the Narrative Grammar of the Campaign

The decision to commission Sophie Fontanel as narrator gives the Monogram 130 series a consistent literary voice. Fontanel, a French writer and former fashion journalist, brings a register that sits between fiction and portrait, lending the campaign films the quality of short stories rather than promotional shorts. In this instalment, the exchange between Olga and Leopold is intimate and lightly comic, shaped by Fontanel’s facility with dialogue that carries a period sensibility without tipping into pastiche.

That narrative framing matters because it changes the way the object is perceived. A trunk shown in isolation, however well photographed, communicates function and craft. A trunk placed in a scene, in the hands of characters with specific desires and habits, communicates culture. Louis Vuitton’s choice to use scripted vignettes rather than straightforward archive footage positions these films as editorial content, closer to short-form cinema than product marketing.

For the full campaign and the accompanying trunk archive, the official campaign film is available to view on the Louis Vuitton YouTube channel, where additional Monogram 130 episodes have also been published.

Why It Matters

The Monogram 130 campaign arrives at a moment when GCC collectors are showing sustained appetite for archival and heritage pieces from the major French Maisons, making the Stokowski Secretary Trunk a relevant reference point for anyone tracking the intersection of travel culture and object design. By placing a 1929 trunk at the centre of a contemporary anniversary campaign, Louis Vuitton draws a direct line between its founding philosophy and its present direction, a continuity that carries particular weight for the Gulf’s established community of trunk and leather goods collectors.

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