Design Star Frank Chou Joins Forces with Louis Vuitton

MagazineDesign Star Frank Chou Joins Forces with Louis VuittonThe celebrated designer conceives indoor-outdoor seating for the ages

By Hannah Martin

January 6, 2022

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The Beijing-based designer Frank Chou.

Courtesy of Louis Vuitton

Frank Chou has been thinking a lot about time. 

“If you’re always doing something, trying to achieve something, you can conquer time,” muses the Beijing-based designer. And certainly he has bested the past decade. Since establishing his namesake firm in 2012—after studying wood science and furniture design at Beijing Forestry University—Chou has racked up a suite of accolades, among them the first Chinese designer to win a SaloneSatellite Design Award at Salone del Mobile during Milan Design Week in 2016, and one of the 2019 Rising Talent Awards China at Maison&Objet. He’s interested in making pieces that stick around. “You might spend a lot of time making one thing, but this thing could last more than 10 years, more than decades, more than centuries.”

It’s an outlook Chou shares with his latest partner, Louis Vuitton. Enlisted by the French luxury brand to contribute to its illustrious Objets Nomades furniture collection, Chou looked to landscapes shaped by ages for inspirations—from the terraced terrain of Yunnan, China, to the cavernous vermilion curves of Antelope Canyon in Arizona. The resulting sofa and armchair, both with swooping forms and cantilevered seats, were devised to withstand not only the years but the elements. As the first-ever outdoor furniture pieces in the Objets Nomades collection, they can be upholstered in the brand’s signature canvas or Brio fabric by Paola Lenti, both waterproof. They work indoors too, wrapped in luxe Louis Vuitton leather.

His new signature lounge chair and sofa for Louis Vuitton’s Objets Nomades furniture collection, both upholstered in Paola Lenti’s waterproof Brio fabric.

Chou hopes the works feel fresh and modern while containing some essence of his own Chinese culture. “We want to find our identity in the work,” he explains, saying, “First I am a human being, second I am Chinese.” In his time-obsessed practice he strives to pinpoint the contemporary Chinese design aesthetic—something rooted in the future more than the past. “What we are always thinking about with our designs is, What is Chinese culture in this moment and what will Chinese culture be in the future?” louisvuitton.com