At the court of King Louis

The first time I set eyes on a Louis Vuitton trunk was, rather incongruously, at Ibiza airport 12 years ago. Noel Gallagher was on my flight, with his mother Peggy (she famously refused to move out of her Manchester council house after her sons found fortune, so I imagine the budget airline was her choice).

At baggage reclaim Noel hauled a coffin of a case, covered in the LV Damier two-tone brown check, onto a trolley and off they went. This meant Noel and Peggy were sharing the trunk between them. What a mummy’s boy. But then, it probably houses a guitar or two very nicely. To this day I still link Vuitton trunks with the Gallagher family, an association Marc Jacobs, friend of Kate Moss and the most rock’n’roll of designers, would no doubt approve of.

Louis Vuitton launched his eponymous business in 1854. His trunks were the first of their kind: flat-bottomed, airtight and lightweight, making them easier to lug on and off ocean liners. By 1913, the business was in the hands of the next generation and a Louis Vuitton Building had opened on the Champs-Élysées. By the time the First World War erupted a year later it was the largest travel goods store in the world, with shops from Bombay to Buenos Aires.

An exhibition has just opened in Paris contrasting the back catalogue of the chiselled Mr Jacobs, all tattoos, puffed chest and diamond studs, with that of Monsieur Vuitton, a wispy, moustachioed member of the Parisian bourgeoisie. Split over two floors of Paris’ Musée des Arts Décoratifs behind the Louvre, the lower level is devoted to the founder and his manifold variations on the trunk: easy to pack, with nifty drawers and compartments; trunks with hangers; trunks that open into mobile wardrobes; trunks that fold out into camp beds; the original Trianon canvas trunks; beige and brown-striped trunks; Damier trunks; and some with the ubiquitous monogram. With all the publicity surrounding Titanic’s centenary I wondered how many just like these must now be lying on the floor of the north Atlantic.

Upstairs it’s Planet Jacobs, where goose-, Afghan hound- and goat-headed mannequins sport his feathered and embroidered confections of the past 15 years, since he was brought in to transform the brand into a fashion house (around the same time that accessories behemoths Prada, Hermès and Gucci did the same). There’s a clockwork wheel with ten pairs of shiny black legs, clad in Vuitton heels and thigh-high PVC boots, opening and closing erratically (Jacobs calls this ‘Just for kicks’); a moodboard decorates one wall, crammed with images of Bowie, Barbra Streisand and high-kicking chorus girls. The exhibition finishes with a peep show: holes drilled into a wall, looking onto footage of some of Jacobs’ catwalk extravaganzas. You’re left with a strong sense of what turns him on: theatre, sex and a big helping of the surreal.

So what’s the connecting thread between these two very different characters? Luggage, of course. Jacobs hasn’t forgotten that it’s leather bags and boxes upon which Louis Vuitton made its name (and its fortune). No, sir. A wall of handbags arranged on giant pleated chocolate papers is the exhibition centrepiece, and there’s a fur chequerboard, a patchwork handbag made of other handbags, the Murakami pill-box bag… On the way out I hear a pair of Parisienne fashionistes say that Jacobs is to launch a fourth artistic collaboration, this time with the dotty Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama who currently has a show at Tate Modern (he has previously teamed up with the artists Richard Prince, Takishi Murakami and Stephen Sprouse).

The new Mandarin Oriental on rue Saint Honoré is a short walk from the exhibition. The area has wonderful shops, from the jewellery stores of Place Vendôme to smaller one-off boutiques, all within walking distance. The hotel is built around an open-air courtyard where, even in early spring, you can eat perfect veal rib in the garden of the elegant Camelia restaurant. Or cool off after a day’s shopping in its 20-metre underground swimming pool.

Because there’s nothing like a fashion exhibition to get you in the mood for shopping. I wandered up the rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau through the colonnaded Galerie d’Orléans and wound up in the Vuitton shop on the Boulevard Haussmann. Where might I find a vintage trunk, I enquired. ‘Let me ask the manager.’ Three managers later I had my answer: ‘There are none left in Paris, but there’s a good dealer in Nice.’ So, next time, Nice it is. ES

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Louis Vuitton – Marc Jacobs is at Les Arts Décoratifs until 16 September (lesartsdecoratifs.fr)

Rooms at the Mandarin Oriental from £635 per night (00800 28 28 38; mandarinoriental.com)