If You Can Get Killed Doing It, Fashion Wants It

It’s a mighty long way from El Capitan to the Louis Vuitton flagship on the Champs-Élysées, but don’t mention that to Virgil Abloh. For his fall 2019 collection, Mr. Abloh, the creative director for men’s wear at Vuitton, introduced a chalk bag not unlike the kind climbers like the free soloist Alex Honnold use to attack rock walls with little more than their limbs and their nerve.

Traditional outfitters like Marmot, North Face and Black Diamond make versions of the bucket-shaped carryall for holding the chalk crucial to keeping climbers’ hands dry as they scale crags and mark ticks on rock faces. Most sell for around $20.

The Vuitton Chalk Nano costs $1,590 (or $3,000 in backpack size), its added value, in corporate-speak, being the “understated Louis Vuitton aesthetic coded into the allover LV monogram.”

Fashion has had a long love affair with sports of all kinds, and it is easy enough to trace an arc from the genteel sports of the leisured classes of the 19th century to the more crazily individualistic ones of today. Since the 1990s, at least, extreme and adventure sports have excited designers, who imported to their runways superficial elements of gear created for street lugers, off-piste snowboarders, arctic surfers and, lately, those who push the outer limits of athletic pursuit.

Source: The New York Times

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Keywords:

El Capitan • Louis Vuitton • Champs-Élysées • Virgil Abloh • Rock-climbing equipment • Rock climbing • Free climbing • Alex Honnold • Climbing wall • Traditional climbing • Marmot (company) • The North Face • Black Diamond Equipment • Carryall • Chalk • Climbing • Rock (geology) • Chalk • Louis Vuitton • Aesthetics • Monogram • Fashion • Individualism • Extreme sport • Backcountry skiing • Snowboarding • Arctic • Surfing • The Outer Limits (1995 TV series) •