The Controversy around Louis Vuitton Handbags

As some of you out there may know, French fashion, especially as it has so much history behind it, isn't a stranger to controversy.

Case in point, renowned French designer Coco Chanel was known to have had an affair with a Nazi officer and was to be charged with war crimes; fortunately for her, she was saved through the intervention of the British Royal family, with whom Coco was on good terms.

The house of Vuitton has a somewhat similar story. In a book published in 2004, titled Louis Vuitton, A French Saga, the author discovered previously unknown details about the fashion house's ties with the French Vichy regime, a government which takes on the dubious honor of being responsible for the transportation of French Jews to the concentration camps, where entire families died.

According to Stephanie Bonvicini, the book's author, members of the Vuitton family sympathized with and even actively supported the Vichy government, under the rule of Marshal Philippe Petain. Their dealings with the Germans brought them lucrative returns.

A side note: Vichy France or the Vichy regime are terms used to denote the period from July 1940 to August 1944 in which the current government of the time, led by Petain, willfully collaborated with the Germans and their occupation of France, sending many innocent people to their deaths. The French milice or militia hunted and rounded up Jews and other undesirables and had them sent to the camps.
The book was initially established as a project to commemorate Vuitton's 150th anniversary; however, it ended up as something more revealing.

The author notes that when she asked about the war years, the company replied that those files had mysteriously burned. Bonvicini, pursued the matter and was led to discover that Louis Vuitton had a store on the ground floor of the Hotel du Parc during this time, which was especially odd, given the fact that all other shops were shut down. Moreover, Vuitton's grandson, who headed the company during the war, had urged his son Henry to become friendly with the Petain regime. Henry was eventually awarded honors for his loyalty to the regime. As if that weren't bad enough, the company actually set up a factory whose sole dedication was to produce artifacts venerating Petain and his government.

Today, Louis Vuitton is owned by the LVMH Group (Louis Vuitton Moet-Hennessy); the group doesn't deny the facts, but aren't keen on dwelling on the past.

In more recent times, however, the company has still failed to clean up its act. In an effort to pitch in her two cents and make the world a better place, Danish artist Nadia Plesner created a design to be depicted on a T-shirt for the charity foundation Divest for Darfur in early 2008.

The 26 year old artist's drawing featured a Paris Hilton-esque Darfur victim, complete with a little dog and designer handbag, which while unlabeled, does look like a Louis Vuitton design. All the profits from her shirt would go to help the victims of Darfur.

Louis Vuitton, however, issued a cease and desist order which then elevated to a full out law suit; they demanded $7,500 for each and every day she kept selling the product, another $7,500 for each day she displayed the cease and desist letter on her website and still another $7,500 for each time she mentioned the name Louis Vuitton on her website.

Further reports allege that the company was asking another $15,000 to cover the expenses incurred by having to pursue Plesner. The basis of their claims is that she is infringing on intellectual property rights. Of course, the company was only exacerbating matters by suing the girl.

They were the only ones damaging their reputation by this course of action. The T-shirts, moreover, were in no way competing with the Vuitton brand, nor would anyone think that the fashion house endorsed, in any way, the effort. The outcome of this affair has yet to be decided. In the meantime, Plesner has not stopped featuring her design on her website.

Not even celebrities are immune from the all powerful machine that is Louis Vuitton. In November of 2007, the fashion house actually sued pop star Britney Spears.

In her 'Do Something' music video, the songstress is seen in the driver's seat of a hot pink hummer floating through a sea of fake clouds. One shot depicts the singer tapping her dashboard which is decorated in a manner suggesting Vuitton's 'Cherry Blossom' design. There are pink flower blossoms on top of a pale pink background embossed with the LV logo.

Spears was not found guilty, however, Sony BMG and MTV Online were ordered to stop showing the video after they were declared guilty of violating counterfeiting laws. Both companies were ordered to pay an 80,000 euro fine as well.

Louis Vuitton seems to have troubles picking the right battles. During the war they sided with the Vichy government and actually made a tidy profit from a regime that sent off its Jewish population to die in German concentration camps.

Although the modern day company isn't associated with any corrupt regimes, that we know of, they still seem to have great troubles with their image. In an effort to protect their brand, they seem to have run full speed into a giant brick wall. Each move they make to supposedly keep the LV name from being tarnished, backfires.