Who's teaming up with Louis Vuitton??

Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby, the duo who designed the London 2012 Olympic torch, have collaborated with Louis Vuitton to create a unique, eco-friendly bell lamp suitable for the most fashionable of travellers.

Award-winning industrial designers Edward Barber and Jay Osgerby, better known as BarberOsgerby, are one of 11 design studios to have fashioned one-off pieces for the storied French fashion house's Objets Nomades collection. The collection consists of 16 contemporary interiors objects that could also be taken travelling by their stylish owner.

The Olympic torch creators chose to reimagine a classic bell lamp, forming it of Venetian Murano glass and giving it the ability to recharge by sunlight. Their method, they say, was "reductive, hence the simplicity of form."

"We began with the idea, then the function," Edward Barber said. "First came an exploration of the technological possibilities to ensure that the lamp was both portable and sustainable. Ease of carriage and the way the lamp's solar and lighting technology work informed the shape."

Rei Kawakubo collaborates with Hermès

Rei Kawakubo, the founder of fashion label Comme des Garçons, has teamed up with Hermès to design two collections of silk scarves.

Rei Kawakubo, the publicity-shy founder of avant-garde label Comme des Garçons, has teamed up with Hermès to create two limited-edition collections of the French brand's iconic silk scarves, or carrés, as they are better known.

Named Comme des Carrés, the collaboration will hit stores in February. The first collection, "Noir et Blanc", will feature five scarves in various black-and-white designs and be sold exclusively in Comme des Garçons stores in Tokyo's Aoyama neighbourhood, New York and Paris. The second, "Couleur", will be more colourful and stocked at both the London and Tokyo branches of Dover Street Market.

Who is Louis Vuitton Collaborating with??

Overlooked for years by the art establishment, 83-year-old Yayoi Kusama's dotty vision is finally being recognised - and is at the heart of a major collaboration with Louis Vuitton.

 Dots are a recurring theme in Yayoi Kusama's art, a visual representation of the hallucinations and anxiety attacks she has suffered from since childhood, so the show is dominated by giant red polka-dotted spheres, and a disorienting room in which huge white fiberglass tulips are covered in red dots - as are the white walls, ceiling and floor.

Since taking charge of the luxury fashion house Louis Vuitton in 1997, Jacobs - a keen art collector - has initiated collaborations with several contemporary artists, from Richard Prince to Takashi Murakami. But the partnership with Kusama, to be launched this month, has produced the most varied collection of products so far.

For the Vuitton collaboration, Yayoi Kusama's polka dots and the nerves pattern are featured on wallets, bags, sunglasses, scarves, bikinis and beach towels and clothes, the first of which are due in store this month. My favorites are a pair of red patent polka-dot heels that look as though they could be owned by Minnie Mouse, and a gorgeously soft, transparent mac covered in black dots.

'I've been active in many different spheres of the arts, whether it be writing novels, creating fashion or pure art by itself. What I would like to put across through all of my art is, I suppose, questions of what human life is, what humans are about, what the earth is about, what the universe is about. And the single message is, really, "love forever".'

It is these two words that adorn much of the merchandise for sale, and if that seems trite we should remind ourselves that Kusama lived through a devastating war and saw nuclear bombs wipe out two Japanese cities. For her it is no mere slogan: it is a message she has spent her life communicating, a struggle that has come at great personal cost. 'Love is the most important thing,' she says. 'Peace is a very important part, but if you wanted to sum it all up in one word, that word would be love.'

The Louis Vuitton/Yayoi Kusama collaboration will be in Louis Vuitton stores from Tuesday. A pop-up store will open in Selfridges, London, on August 24