Today I saw the Louis Vuitton & Paris: Voyage en Capitale exhibit at the Musée Carnavalet in Paris. (The museum is part of the Parisian municipal museum system that includes the Notre Dame crypt and the catacombs.)
The exhibit, which runs until Feb. 27, 2011, showed how Louis Vuitton took was and is intertwined with the city of Paris itself. Louis Vuitton founded the company himself - he started in 1837 with an apprenticeship with Marechal as a "trunk-maker and packer" and became a salesman for the company two years later. In 1852, he became the packer for Empress Eugenie, which set him off for founding his own company in 1854.
The house made its first flat trunk in 1856 and distinguished itself by making lighter cases with waterproof canvas (the Trianon canvas). Vuitton also made some of the first specified trunks, like the compartment trunk, the bed trunk, and the watertight trunk. He started taking special orders in 1869.