When I saw that Louis Vuitton was trending this morning and, at the time that I checked, there were over 100K tweets, I knew it couldn’t have been just because of the new collection. I suspected that either the company had gotten in some offensive f-cksh-t or… 

BTS. 

 

Because as I think we all know by now, BTS and ARMY dominate Twitter daily for whatever reason connected to RM, Jin, Suga, j-hope, Jimin, V, and Jungkook happens to be happening that day. And today it’s Louis Vuitton. 

Because of this: 

Look at the number of likes and retweets there. LV is a major label, no doubt, but they almost never see those numbers, that amount of Twitter activity. And they would not have had that activity to promote Virgil Abloh’s new collection had it not been for BTS doing them a favour and recording themselves unboxing their invitations. In this case, LV is not Beyoncé, sorry. Whereas it IS indeed an achievement to be on Beyoncé’s gifting list for Ivy Park x Adidas and all celebrities want to be included, and while I recognise that LV is a legacy label, again, BTS isn’t bragging here that LV sent them their cardboard airplanes and some swag the way every celebrity that received an Ivy Park closet rushed to post on Instagram.

 

To note: RM, Jin, Suga, j-hope, Jimin, V, and Jungkook (I love his hair like this) are not brand ambassadors. They have worn LV, of course, but they also wear a lot of Chanel – men’s and women’s clothing – and Gucci and Dior and … well… every big time fashion house wants to dress them. And they certainly don’t need exclusivity with one fashion house or the freebies. Louis Vuitton 100% benefited more from this than BTS. This is why they reached out to make the ask.

In one of my last posts about BTS in 2020, I wrote about the BTS Effect for the publishing industry and how western publications experienced surges in sales, circulation, and viral mentions when they featured the band in their magazines, and I wondered whether or not others in the west would see those gains and engage with BTS for the same results. From magazines to luxury fashion houses, BTS is being targeted for their social and cultural impact and for the power of their fanbase and it’s also worth mentioning here that luxury fashion has now been dependent on the East Asian market for years. 

 

And yet. It sucks that there still has to be an “and yet”. But the “and yet” is that almost every day, I keep having to convince a reader or a colleague or a friend that they are legit icons at this point, despite the records they keep breaking and their achievements and their power of social media communication, which is perhaps the greatest asset (and sometimes weapon, when used irresponsibly) of our time. 

MVP Kamala Harris knows though. 

 

And yes, of course, the Bernie meme had a BTS moment too: