Legendary trunkmaker and lifelong traveller, grandson of Louis Vuitton, Gaston-Louis Vuitton amassed a unique collection of 3 000 hotel labels. Affixed to guests’ luggage for promotional purposes, the labels evoked far-off destinations and bore witness to the wonderful journeys undertaken by the trunks’ owners. The graphic design of these labels is typical of an era, while also reflecting a certain lifestyle at a time when travel still constituted an adventure. The iconic representation of the hotel, typography and chromatic range all attest to a style and an era and recount the story of tourism in the first half of the 20^th century.

Over 800 hotel labels from Gaston-Louis Vuitton’s collection, now conserved in the House of Vuitton archives, combined with a rich iconography of period photographs depict the golden age of tourism when travelling was truly an art of living.