Something has taken over the portion of Oxford Street between Duke Street and Orchard Street otherwise known as Selfridges. It's the dot. Many of them in fact. Yayoi Kusama's dot to be precise. This is an unprecedent monobrand takeover whereby, Louis Vuitton's collaboration with Kusama is showcased to the max, casting its dotty net across twenty four windows as well as the Concept Store space on the ground floor. Your eyes are almost assaulted by the polka dot, a pattern that Kusama is intent on spreading across the world in line, trapping herself and the world around in this infinitive pattern. If you traverse from the Orchard Street end of the store, a poem "Love Forever" plays out in both English and Japanese, as an ode to this collection and to the future in general. Stars. Shining. Budding Love. All perfectly cast in gold typography, set alongside her collaboration with Louis Vuitton.
The significant point of this retail takeover is of course that Selfridges is exclusively selling (for eight weeks) the monogrammed part of this collaboration with the dot-covered bags and leather goods sure to get the hardcore Louis Vuitton art-collab collectors hot under the collar. I'm personally partial to the dotty op-art monogrammed totes myself. The Concept Store space has been transformed with Kusama's signature giant pumpkins, punctuated with dots and I suspect the trick is that as you enter, you become overhwhelmed with a feverish desire to own a piece of this dotty world or at the very least, run your hands over the product which comprises clothing, shoes, sunnies, scarves and of course the bags. If that doesn't convince you, then looking into the eyes of the three eerily lifelike waxwork Kusama figures will. One is in the hallway, linking the Louis Vuitton area of the Selfridges and the Yayoi Kusama concept store and the other two are in the showcase corner window, where thousands of people are likely to point, gawp and camera-snap. Oxford Street will and probably already has fallen under Kusama's spell.
