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RAY OF LIGHT: Marc Jacobs was so pleased with this spring's Louis Vuitton campaign
featuring Madonna that he was eager to do an encore. "But very quickly Marc said, 'I want something
completely different,'" related Antoine Arnault, Vuitton's communication director. The new ingredients
included a dash of Tamara de Lempicka and a soupçon of Man Ray for color-drenched images by
Steven Meisel with a surreal edge, thanks to generous use of solarization, a technique of overexposure
first perfected by Ray. "It gives something very graphic, more edgy" than the first Madonna campaign,
also by Meisel, which depicted her as a French coquette in a Parisian bistro setting, Arnault said. The
new spots, which break in a range of August titles, feature a variety of runway looks and leather
goods, many in the house's signature monogram. Asked about the impact of the first Madonna
campaign, Arnault said, snapping his fingers for emphasis, "Everything she was wearing in the first
campaign was sold within a few months. People came into the store saying, 'I want the
Madonna bag, the Madonna shoes."Arnault declined to specify budgets for the fall ads, but said
investments would be "flattish" versus last year. "We're one of the rare brands to have not reduced
investments," he said.

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