THE LOUIS VUITTON CITY GUIDE TAKES A TRIP TO OSAKA AND CELEBRATES THE CITY AS PART OF THE WORLD EXPO 2025
To coincide with the World Expo 2025, the Louis Vuitton City Guide is travelling to Osaka for the first time and publishing an entire edition dedicated to the Japanese port city, featuring almost 200 must-visit destinations.
Osaka is a buzzing metropolis full of contrasts, known for its friendly people and cultural vibrancy. Located in the heart of Japan, it combines tradition with modernity and is a hub for innovation and creativity.
Verdy, the special guest contributor for this City Guide, embodies this perfectly. An artist, illustrator and graphic designer who grew up in the city’s Suminoe area, he developed a passion for art, manga, and music at a young age, drawing inspiration from his everyday surroundings. He also became fixated on fashion during his teenage years. As a student, he met the renowned architect Tadao Ando, a prominent figure from Osaka whose work has been a great source
of inspiration for him. Tadao Ando has also shared tips on his favourite spots in this City Guide.
Alongside the guide’s usual sections, this edition includes two brand-new additions:
a compendium dedicated to the culinary art of “the nation’s pantry”, illustrated by drawings from Thai artist Beya Panicha, as well as a series of portraits taken by Japanese photographer Kenta Nakamura which shine a spotlight on the city’s most prominent figures.
This spring, in honor of Sakura season, Louis Vuitton unveils a new addition to its Fashion Eye photography book series: Osaka by Jean-Vincent Simonet. Far from the picturesque, the French photographer takes us on a psychedelic journey through the city.
An aquarium, karaoke bar, shopping center, Shinto temple… Drifting through Osaka like a disciple of Guy Debord, Jean-Vincent Simonet doesn’t merely visit the city—he loses himself within it. Wandering from one neighborhood to the next, he immerses himself in shifting atmospheres, free of preconceptions, direction, or even intent. Before his eyes, dahlias, ordinary people, and buildings pass by and collide, swept along by the same current—that of progress—which is impossible to curb. In 2018, his photobook In Bloom, a vivid and frenetic chronicle of a past stay in Japan, immersed us in a whirlwind of images, rapidly captured, instantly experienced, and extensively reimagined.
Already, the city embodied a mutating, sprawling creature, a cyberspace straight out of a video game. Almost-flash-like visuals painted a hallucinatory yet faithful portrait. Simonet is at it again, traveling from north to south through the capital of Kansai, the birthplace of Bunraku, Gutai, Osamu Tezuka, and Tadao Ando.
Taken by day or night with a telephoto lens, on a large-format camera or smartphone, his shots, kept as they are or retouched by hand, recreate the “texture” of an industrial and rebellious city—a “vast collage” whose “retro-futuristic charm” inspired Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982). Each of these “paintings” is printed using seven different inks, capturing the frenzied style explored in Color (2012) by Daido Moriyama. From the heights of the Tower of the Sun to the depths of the mini-bars at the Mittera Kaikan, the journey becomes a borderline experience.
JEAN-VINCENT SIMONET
Born in 1991 in Bourgoin-Jallieu, in the Isère region, Jean-Vincent Simonet lives and works between Paris and Zurich. Coming from a family of printers, whose expertise has been passed down for four generations, the ECAL graduate has a unique approach.
The artist’s work is an experimental blend of photography, painting, and advanced technology, using the image as both raw material and a basis for deeper artistic exploration. Printed on a plastic surface where ink adheres imperfectly, the print undergoes a series of chemical treatments, washes, and drying processes, gradually transforming the original surface.
He has exhibited at Fotomuseum (Winterthur), the Webber Gallery (London), CentroCentro (Madrid), Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), and Centre Photographique Rouen Normandie.
LOUIS VUITTON FASHION EYE
Since 1854, travelling has been a core value at Louis Vuitton. Following the City Guide and Travel Book released twenty-five and ten years ago, in 2016, the Fashion Eye series took a fresh look at getting away from it all. Fashion photographers past and present portray different cities, regions and countries.
Free rein is given to emerging talents, whose work can be found alongside past portfolios from some of photography’s greats. Colour, monochrome, from a bygone era to the present day, the images from one volume to the next appear to be literally poles apart, as each addition to the series completes the ever-changing puzzle of the world.
The catalogue includes around forty titles, all united by their rounded corners and their celadon, saffron or grenadine covers, faithful to Frédéric Bortolotti’s elegant design.
Inside, the paper, binding and layout adapt to the author’s style and geographical location. The exception is the only rule followed by these invitations to a motionless journey, teasers of a possible departure.
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