LV ICONS - Amazone

Tokyo Kanamecho, Toshima-ku, yesterday afternoon

His contact had arranged to meet him in a Tokyo suburb, at the foot of an escalator in a shopping mall. He had had to learn the names of the stations by heart, and concentration on counting the stops between Yurakucho, his last change, and his destination. He glanced at his shoulder bag, instantly recalling the very first adventure they had shared, in the Brazilian Pantanal, where he had succeeded in photographing a family of jaguars hunting at night. It was a wholly different kind of scoop he be bringing back today.

Originally designed by Gaston-Louis Vuitton to protect the photographic equipment of an explorer preparing an expedition to the South American tropical rainforest, the Amazone bag has been reclaimed by chic young men keen to display their independent spirit. This functional right-angled bag has become an icon of the new urban tribes: today you are far more likely to see it on the streets of the world's great cities than near the river it is named after.

(The 11 posts included in the LV ICONS series are excerpts from the ©Louis Vuitton Icons look book released in September 2006; with Photographs by ©Thomas Lagrange, ©Laurent Bremaud, ©Vogue, ©Roger-Viollet, ©Agence France Presse and Words by ©Stephane Gerschel)