You won't have to wait until The Drama comes up in April to see Zendaya in movie-star mode: On February 4, Louis Vuitton released a cinematic close-up of the actor (who's also a brand ambassador) in a new campaign marking the 130th anniversary of the everlasting Monogram.
One party wouldn't have been enough to honor the legacy of the iconic pattern, so the French luxury house will be dropping Monogram-centric campaigns, depicting how it translates across its signature handbags, all year long. Zendaya leads the pack, photographed by Glen Luchford with the Speedy Bag. Dressed in a pinstripe vest and trousers—both with Louis Vuitton tags—Zendaya let the lived-in duffle take center stage.
The emphasis of the campaign, the brand said in a press release, is to "highlight the personal narratives of global celebrities" relating to the Monogram, which remains as much a status symbol today as it has over the past century. The Speedy originally debuted in the 1930s as soft luggage, but it didn't get the Monogram treatment until 1959. Louis Vuitton describes "the Speedy’s supple form, wide zip closure, and signature handles" as timeless, allowing the bag to transcend generations.
Zendaya's modeled a Louis Vuitton Speedy before. In December 2024, she became the face of the renewed Louis Vuitton x Takashi Murakami collaboration, and posed alongside the Keepall, Venice, and Speedy models, which "reimagined and updated" the Japanese artist's circa-2000s rainbow take on the Monogram. Zendaya effortlessly channeled the decade's vivid youthfulness.
By May 2025, Louis Vuitton cast Zendaya in another Speedy-led campaign, that time for chapter three of the Murakami collaboration. The soft, Speedy 30 boasted bright red cherries atop Louis Vuitton's almost-invisible gray Monogram. She continued to serve Y2K-coded nostalgia on a silver platter.
The Challengers actor's newest campaign is less about the history of the Monogram, and more about how it exists in the world and the role it plays in people's lives. In the accompanying video, directed by Roman Coppola, Zendaya enters as herself—a modern fashion muse—with an equally-relevant print and purse by her side. She delivers an animated monologue to "my Speedy," saying: "With you, I feel something familiar—like a reflection of my own instinct for velocity. Maybe that’s the attraction, the shared connection of speed, not waiting, just racing together into what comes next."
Only Zendaya could make us fall in love with a 96-year-old handbag, as if it launched yesterday.
