Robotic arms that test the durability of handbags, a pristine swatch of 128-year-old monogram canvas, and snazzy red-carpet dresses custom made for Zendaya and Cate Blanchett are among the surprising artifacts featured in “Visionary Journeys,” a major exhibition dedicated to Louis Vuitton opening Tuesday at the Nakanoshima Museum of Art in Osaka.

Showcasing more than 1,000 objects, about a fifth of them specific to Japan, the showcase coincides with the World Expo Osaka Kansai 2025, which has already attracted more than 10 million visitors.

Curated by fashion historian Florence Müller, it tells the story of the French luxury brand across 12 thematic rooms, detailing its foundation in 1854, its key materials, innovations, collaborations and deep roots in travel-related products, from the stackable, flat-top trunks and steamer bags of yore to a Trail messenger bag in Damoflage canvas from Pharrell Williams’ spring 2024 collection.

According to Pietro Beccari, chairman and chief executive officer of Louis Vuitton, authentic narratives are resonating more than ever, especially with younger generations.

“It’s a period in which people are searching for meaning – and we believe Vuitton has a lot of meaning, authenticity and history,” he said in an interview ahead of the opening. “We feel a need to reiterate our origins, our history – who we are.”

Indeed, such are Beccari’s convictions about the value of this vehicle for brand storytelling, he personally reserved the Nakanoshima back in 2023, knowing how far in advance such in-demand museums set their programs.

Housed in a huge black cube, the museum boasts a collection of more than 6,000 works of modern and contemporary art and design, and has hosted shows dedicated to Claude Monet, Amedeo Modigliani, Toulouse-Lautrec and Nagasawa Rosetsu since opening in 2022.

“This platform is very important because of Osaka, because of this fantastic museum, and because of the millions of visitors going to Osaka in this period,” Beccari told WWD.

Asked about the return on investment for such exhibitions, Beccari said there’s no precise way of knowing. However, he said he and LVMH chairman and CEO Bernard Arnault are “profoundly convinced” that “the more people we expose to the history of Louis Vuitton, the more chances we have people become loyal customers.”

Vuitton debuted a smaller, warmup iteration of “Visionary Journeys” at “The Louis,” its cruise ship-shaped temporary store that recently opened in Shanghai. That exhibition can welcome 2,000 visitors a day, and Vuitton estimates that a little more than half of them “buy a piece of the legend” afterwards, making a beeline for the 3,000-square-foot retail space.

“Retail-tainment – a mix of retail, learning and lifestyle all at once – is a word you will hear more frequently relating to Louis Vuitton,” Beccari said.

For the Osaka exhibition, the executive wanted a blend of tradition and modernity – plus new discoveries galore, all displayed in spectacular fashion.

“Louis Vuitton is a mix of powerful history and an extremely high capacity to be in the present moment,” he said.

Hence, historical documents galore, handbags, tools, trunks and fashions are displayed amid highly Instagrammable elements, from the monumental “trunk towers,” made of washi paper and lit from within, that soar above the entrance atrium, to the robotic arms putting handbags through their paces in the laboratory-like “Testing” section.

Shohei Shigematsu, New York-based partner of architecture firm OMA, designed unique environments for each of the displays, one room resembling the interior of a hot-air balloon, another domed with shards of gleaming metal, evoking the feeling of being inside a kaleidoscope.

“Each room is envisioned as a distinct set within a continuous story, providing spatial diversity that reflects the house’s creative breadth,” Shigematsu explained. “The scenography becomes a journey through active environments that enable new interactions between space, object, and viewer.”

The exhibition puts the accent on never-before-seen artifacts, of which Müller found plenty, among them that century-old square of patterned canvas that was in perfect condition when the box deposited at The Paris Archives in 1896 was recently unsealed.

“It was emotional,” Müller related. “It’s super important for what the house would become, but it’s such a small object – a little piece of canvas, but the beginning of something huge.”

Shigematsu gave the swatch pride of place in a dome-shaped exhibition room, around which orbit monogram handbags like planets.

Beccari recounted how in the late 1880s the founder’s son Georges registered checkerboard patterns, then stripes, then Damier checkerboard with the brand name in the corner, as each introduction became widely copied. This compelled him in 1896 to create the famous monogram blending the LV initials and a geometric floral pattern.

“Ironically, this is now the most copied thing in the world,” Beccari remarked.

Müller was stunned to discover a large trunk from Vuitton’s early days with wheels, foreshadowing the lightweight rolling cabin bags of today. “It’s one example of inventing constantly,” she said.

Her research also led to the finding of Sameshima Naonobu, Japan’s first resident diplomat in France and a Vuitton client starting in 1874. “It shows that the brand was already famous,” the curator marveled.

Vuitton’s longstanding cultural exchanges with Japan are a recurring topic throughout the Osaka exhibition, and are exalted in a dedicated room outfitted with tatami platforms and lighting.

Among the rare artifacts displayed here is a “masterpiece” kimono from the Edo period, of which only a few dozen exist. On loan from the Musée Guimet in Paris, the floral-printed robe is displayed next to the Vuitton dress it inspired, part of a collection by Nicolas Ghesquière, the brand’s artistic director of women’s collections since 2013.

Shigematsu noted that since Osaka has historically “played a key role in disseminating Japanese tradition and craftsmanship to the world,” the city represents a fitting venue to showcase Vuitton’s “craftsmanship legacy, savoir-faire, and global exploration in parallel with Japanese culture. We drew from elements of Japanese heritage, merging them with Louis Vuitton’s codes to enable new dialogues between France and Japan.”

Vuitton began selling its products in Japan in the ’60s, and opened its first stores in 1978, located within department stores or hotels in Tokyo and Osaka.

Beccari noted that Vuitton was also one of the first luxury brands in Japan to move down to the main floor of department stores.

Today, Vuitton operates 57 locations in the island nation, including nine boutiques in Osaka and a recently renovated and expanded Ginza flagship in Tokyo.

“The love for Louis Vuitton in the country has been immense and mutual, probably because of the obsession for quality we share with the Japanese,” Beccari said, also citing its no-discount policy and repair and refurbishment services, ensuring long lives for its products. “The repair centers in Japan are very, very active.”

“The Japanese love the brand,” Müller concurred. “They love this idea of French quality, and this idea – which is also something developed in the exhibition – of a family dynasty.”

Müller said she was pleased to discover that the descendants of the founder, particularly Georges and Gaston, were fervent collectors and meticulously documented their creations. “The notion of archives and patrimony is very present in the house, almost since the beginning,” she said.

Even Beccari, who spent six years at Louis Vuitton earlier in his career, said he continues to discover new historical facts about the brand, recently learning that Gaston Vuitton participated in the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in Paris in 1925, considered a watershed moment for the Art Deco style.

The Osaka exhibition includes photos of Vuitton’s stand at the legendary fair, which showcased such exceptional items as a vanity kit made for soprano Marthe Chenel.

“I believe that proximity to artists, to the design movement of the time, showed how visionary and impressive this personality in the history of Vuitton has been,” Beccari said. “After Louis and Georges, Gaston is a personality that fascinated me more and more… He was a businessman, but he had a very creative mind.”

Indeed, many of the innovations in the 1920s – including Vuitton’s first forays into fragrance and beauty accessories – were prescient of its thriving perfume activity, which was reintroduced in 2016, and its launch next month of 55 lipsticks, 10 lip balms and eight eye palettes with its new cosmetics creative director Pat McGrath.

Gaston was also the mastermind behind Vuitton’s transporting window displays in that era, with a famous one depicting a rustic garden with a stone lantern.

Perhaps the most futuristic room in “Visionary Journeys” contains the robot arms, which repeatedly lift bags, plop them on the ground, or open and close them, or attempt to scratch them.

“We like people to know that we don’t leave anything to fate,” Beccari said. “We try to test every condition in order to guarantee the quality is supreme.”

The Atelier Rarex room is bound to be popular, marking the first time Vuitton has spotlighted the workshop it operates on Place Vendôme to produce one-of-a-kind couture pieces for celebrities at global events, like the Academy Awards and the Met Gala.

Portholes placed in a replica of the zinc mansard roof showcase dresses worn by the likes of Léa Seydoux, Cynthia Erivo, Jude Bellingham, Suzu Hirose, Callum Turner, Tahar Rahim and Emma Stone, who won her second Oscar in 2024 for “Poor Things” wearing a strapless green Vuitton gown.

“We waited to have enough quantity to show,” Beccari said. “Not everybody knows that we have an atelier that can do made-to-measure, and I think it’s the time to tell the world.”

Vuitton’s last exhibition of such scale was “Volez, Voguez, Voyagez,” which debuted in 2015 at the Grand Palais in Paris and traveled to cities including New York, Tokyo and Seoul.

“Visionary Journeys” runs until Sept. 17 in Osaka, where Vuitton also has an exhibition at the French Pavilion inside World Expo 2025, which has already clocked more than 2 million visitors. Beccari hinted it could travel to other cities.