Every Step It Takes to Create Louis Vuitton’s Kaleidoscope Cabinet

Published on August 3, 2025

Camilla Ferrari

Louis Vuitton’s Objets Nomades collection has long blurred the line between furniture and art—but one of its latest creations crosses assertively into sculptural territory. The Kaleidoscope Cabinet, designed by Brazil’s Estúdio Campana, is so intricate that only eight will be produced. This version, exhibited during Milan’s annual furniture expo Salone del Mobile, is an electric-blue monolith clad in nearly 600 individually cut leather triangles, each one precisely applied to create its variegated effect.

Founded by Humberto Campana and his late brother, Fernando, in 1984, São Paulo–based Estúdio Campana has collaborated with Vuitton since 2012. Yet this is its first floor-standing cabinet for the French house and one of its most technically ambitious designs to date. Campana envisioned the piece as a mandala—a circular, patterned form that symbolizes the cyclical nature of life.

“It’s like ping-pong,” he says of the collaboration process. “I give them the poetry; they come back with the mathematics.”

Turning it into a reality required two years of development and the creation of more than 130 custom components, including gold-plated-brass hinges and leather-wrapped pulls for the interior drawers. Its yards of machine-cut, hand-stitched hide mean the piece takes over four months to complete. (Each example is priced upon request and available to order through the brand’s boutiques.)

Open the doors and Vuitton’s travel heritage comes into focus: Hidden compartments, leather-lined shelves, and generous drawers recall the ingenuity of the company’s earliest trunks. Here’s the journey it takes before being delivered to your home.

• 1. Tan and Trim

  
  Image Credit: Camilla Ferrari

  To get the colors of the cabinet’s 590 leather triangles just right, designers have the hides tanned to achieve the correct hue. Light projectors are used to guide the most efficient placement for every cut. Then, each segment is trimmed with a CNC machine. This stage alone lasts over a week.

• 2. Beech Shape

  
  Image Credit: Camilla Ferrari

  A trio of woods is carefully dried to prevent future warping. The beech doors (seen here), ash shelves, and limewood drawers are shaped by machine but must be sanded by hand, as the leather or microfiber upholstery applied to them will highlight any flaws on the surface beneath. The full wooden structure takes about two months to make. 

• 3. Fine-tuning the Pattern

  
  Image Credit: Camilla Ferrari

  Each of the triangles is sized, numbered, and meticulously placed onto the cabinet using removable adhesive. Artisans use bone folders and awls to align and fine-tune the pattern by hand. Once perfectly positioned, the triangles are glued, polished, and inspected—like assembling a jigsaw puzzle, only with higher stakes—which requires over a month of labor. 

• 4. Concealing

  
  Image Credit: Camilla Ferrari

  Gold-plated-brass hinges, which are designed to sit flush with the body, are used to attach the doors. Though you can’t see much of them, the hinges and their pivot pins feature a concealed stop mechanism so that the cabinet stays open when you want it to. To hide the inner screws, the interior is lined with microfiber panels that cover various mechanisms. 

• 5. Handiwork

  
  Image Credit: Camilla Ferrari

  To create the legs, four unique forms are turned from wood, then hand-carved with a gouged pattern. Once complete, they’re used as molds for bronzed-brass versions of the legs, which are made using the lost-wax technique. Each leg is hammered by hand and fitted with an adjustable foot to keep the cabinet level, then attached at masked points in the frame. A clear protective coating prevents the brass from aging.

• 6. Signature Application

  
  Image Credit: Camilla Ferrari

  The LV logo and Campana signature are applied to one of the leather triangles with a stamp heated to approximately 212 degrees Fahrenheit. This demands perfect timing—a second too long scorches the leather; too short and the imprint blurs. 

• 7. Final Assembly

  
  Image Credit: Camilla Ferrari

  The finished cabinet weighs more than 350 pounds. It takes two people to assemble and up to five people to safely mount it on its legs. This includes installing the shelves and making sure every component is properly aligned.

• 8. Padded Packaging

  
  Image Credit: Camilla Ferrari

  The curved bottom drawer, shown here in the final product, was so difficult to engineer that Campana says the project “was almost aborted.” Once complete, the cabinet is packaged in a purpose-built wooden crate with padded interiors, ensuring it arrives in pristine condition. 

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