I’ll like to talk about global branding and global fashion. I think is incredible fascinating to see how aspiring middle class girls from china, or other third world country, dreams about having the It bag. How that wish develops into an obsession, and why we let it happen.

Art and design are also correlated. For example we have the very successful partnership of Louis Vuiton and Takashi Murakami. When the head designer of Louis Vuitton, American Marc Jacobs, was trying to revive the tired look of their simple logo bags he thought of Takashi a then not very well known artist from Japan.

Marc Jacobs and Takashi Murakami single handle revive the logo and made those bags the highest grosser in Louis Vuitton history.
Takashi Murakami, 41, is Japan's answer to Andy Warhol. Growing up in Tokyo he was hugely influenced by the differing characters from Japanese comic books and cartoons, specifically Mange and Anime. Using a combination of these types of characters he evolved his own artistic merchandise from an early age.
In his twenties he studied a blend of Western and Eastern painting styles called Nihonga at Tokyo University before becoming disenchanted with its lack of real life attachment and turned to something a little different. "I set out to investigate the secret of market survivability through characters like Mickey Mouse, Sonic the Hedgehog, Hello Kitty and Miffy and the way they created a huge imitations market in Hong Kong." he said.
Heading up his own company, Kaikai Kiki, and using Bill Gates's various works as an inspiration Takashi approaches his artistic assignments with a firm grasp of the current computerized world.
Starting with the standard artist sketches in a notebook the full image is fleshed out and scanned into a computer. From there Takashi works in Adobe Illustrator, twisting, tweaking and playing until he has an image exactly as his mind's eye sees it.
He cycles through the various shapes, colors, blends and images that a powerful system can produce faster than we can imagine it before settling on a design that please his intentions at the sketch stage. This is exactly how the Louis Vuitton Murakami range "came to be" in the unique form it is today. Each item is totally unique and from there he passes the finished blueprint to his staff that transfer everything to paper and canvas for painting.
This last paragraph is from Louis Vuitton web page. I think its incredible of them to think about something unique when hundreds of thousands bags were made (345,000,000.00 in 2003 to be exact)
This desired was developed in a smart ad campaign that for the first time united a “real” artist to a handbag. It was then placed in the right arms of the right people and then saw the world over in glossy magazines. Who can resist? The handbag is actually quite and interesting; another important point is how the bag is sold. Only in LV boutiques and of course the dreaded waiting list is there waiting for your name to be added. That only creates more desire.