Now, LV makes the bag of your dreams

MANILA, Philippines - It begins with a choice of coffee or freshly brewed iced tea set on gold LV-embossed coasters and a selection of sweets on a tiered plate, followed by a casual diagnosis of your lifestyle by a Louis Vuitton envoy. “Do you like to carry a lot of things?” “Do you stick with the same bag, no matter the occasion?” “What’s your favorite color?” The line of questioning feels like a quiz straight out of the pages of Glamour, but in this case, you don’t end up with an unsatisfactory generalization of your personal style — you end up with the Louis Vuitton bag of your dreams, all of its parts handpicked by you.

The most crucial question has to be “Which of these styles are you most drawn to?” Out of a selection of five classic Louis Vuitton styles — which include the Lockit, Triangle, and the two new styles exclusive to Haute Maroquinerie, the Milaris and the Neo Steamer — I pick the Noé, a bucket-style bag that was originally created by Louis Vuitton in 1932 to carry champagne. “Four right-side up, and one turned over,” says Daniela Fenix-San Agustin, Louis Vuitton Philippines PR manager, who is walking me through the entire process of Haute Maroquinerie, Louis Vuitton’s made-to-order service caravan.

The Noé on display is a milky shade of beige, like a rich latte especially with its buttery leather, but you can have it made in any color you want, using your choice of leather and hardware. Angela Poblador Antonio, who handles clienteling for Louis Vuitton Philippines, opens a three-foot monogrammed LV trunk to reveal swatches upon swatches of leathers and hues, from the LV “house colors” — the creamy camels, the Damier grays, and the delicious blacks, to a more vibrant selection that covers everything from magenta to peacock blue to the brightest orange imaginable, like a Photoshop toolbar recreated with plush leather. There are 27 colors and 40,000 possible combinations.

When she asks me to pick a color, one for the exterior of the bag and another for the lining, I freeze up a little. Is it possible to make a mistake? What a travesty it would be to mismatch colors (and for what they would later reveal amounts to a P500,000 investment!) But they assure me that every color in the trunk was carefully selected such that they all will go together no matter what I do, no matter how outrageous I try to be. “Marc Jacobs himself made sure of that,” Daniela says. I pick a deep eggplant for the outside and a bright citron for the inside. True enough, the LV Haute Maroquinerie app shows me a digital rendering of the handbag that proves Jacobs a genius.

Choice of hardware is much less intimidating, just between gold and silver buckles and zip-pulls and lockets all without the usual LV engraving. But the final part of the process is something worth mulling over: personalizing the handbag. “We can accommodate up to three lines,” says Angela. “You can put your name, the names of your daughters who will inherit the handbag.” She shares that they once had a client who wanted to have the names of her three dogs on her Maroquinerie Steamer. “Maybe her dogs are really special to her,” she shrugs. I choose to put my initials and a slight shiver runs up my spine — that LV font becomes them.

Louis Vuitton’s Haute Maroquinerie Salon in Greenbelt 4 is ultra exclusive, so exclusive, you have to book an appointment to even see it. Inside, it holds treasures, or rather, the stuff of treasures — a candy store for women whose love for bags transcends off-the-rack luxuries, even the Speedy itself. Every order is sent to Louis Vuitton’s special order workshop in Asnières, one of a dozen Vuitton workshops in France, to be crafted by Vuitton artisans, and the final product is unveiled to the client in Manila after five to six months. Haute Maroquinerie, the salon and the service, is Louis Vuitton paying homage to its heritage of creating custom high-leather goods for the traveler, whether onboard a ship, a plane, or just on heels gracefully pounding on pavement. At the same time, the interactive experience is one for the books and worth checking out while it’s here.

* * *

The Haute Maroquinerie Salon is only in Manila, at the Louis Vuitton store in Greenbelt 4, until February 2014. To book an appointment, call 756-0637.