Photography: LOUIS VUITTON / ANNIE LEIBOVITZ
“Some journeys change mankind forever.”
Louis Vuitton commemorates the 40th anniversary of man’s conquest of the Moon, elevating the theme of travel as a personal journey to a celebration of a voyage of unsurpassed significance for all mankind. The latest Core Values advertising campaign features Buzz Aldrin, who in the course of the historic Apollo 11 mission with Neil Armstrong on 20th and 21st July 1969, became the second man to set foot upon the Moon; Jim Lovell, the commander of the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission in 1970, who – as the world watched with bated breath – heroically guided his crew back to the safety of Earth; and Sally Ride, who in 1983 became the first American woman to venture into space as a crew member on Space Shuttle Challenger.
Once again shot by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz, the campaign was shot on the high plateaux of the Californian desert, from where, on a clear night, the Moon takes on an almost supernatural intensity. The three astronauts are portrayed quietly surveying the sky from the battered pickup truck in which they have undertaken this journey together, each no doubt reliving an extraordinary memory. Beside them on the truck is Louis Vuitton’s Icare travel bag in Monogram canvas, an allusion to the mythological hero who also dreamed of flight. The tag line, in an echo of Neil Armstrong’s famous words in 1969, states: “Some journeys change mankind forever”.
Louis Vuitton is launching a dedicated website – louisvuittonjourneys.com– on which Buzz Aldrin, Jim Lovell and Sally Ride discuss how the experience of space changed their lives, offering a fascinating insight into Annie Leibovitz’s print visual. The site attains a degree of interactivity that is unprecedented for Louis Vuitton, enabling internet users to view the interviews as if they were actually present by, for example, playing them in any order they want, zooming in on an individual astronaut, or viewing the reactions of one astronaut to what another is saying. The interviews, which were filmed with three separate movie cameras to create a strange, gravity-defying ambiance, as if the astronauts were indeed in space, can also be downloaded to a computer, MP3 or mobile phone. Also featured on louisvuittonjourneys.com is a making-of video of the interviews, as well as a focus on The Climate Project, spearheaded by Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore, to which Louis Vuitton is making a donation on behalf of the three astronauts.
The new Core Values visual will appear in the July 2009 issues of international titles, while louisvuittonjourneys.com will be launched by a video teaser on June 3rd ahead of its worldwide launch on July 2nd.
More pics after the jump…
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The Making Of…
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