Louis Vuitton, the French maker of laminated canvas handbags, was named the world’s most valuable luxury brand for a seventh consecutive year.

The brand, owned by LVMH, is worth $25.9 billion, a 7 percent increase from 2011, according to Millward Brown Optimor’s 2012 BrandZ study.

Hermes, in which LVMH owns a stake, rose to second place with a value of $19.1 billion, up 61 percent on last year. Rolex, the closely-held Swiss watch brand, was ranked third at $7.17 billion, a 36 percent gain.

Despite its increasing innovations in the online arena, Louis Vuitton hasn’t forgotten the art of letter writing, with reports that the French luxury house is planning to expand its stationery offerings with more “paper goods and related paraphernalia.”

Coinciding with the publication of the book titled  Louis Vuitton: 100 Legendary Trunks, the brand has developed an iPad app of the same name.

The app has pretty much the same content as the book, including images of the most spectacular trunks and cases created on commission by Louis Vuitton, 1000 illustrations and even an ad catalogue from 1892.

Louis Vuitton has released a limited edition regatta watch for the 2012 America’s Cup. Often called the “oldest trophy in international sport”, this year marks the 34th America’s Cup.

The 34th America’s Cup consists of three main stages – the America’s Cup World Series; the Louis Vuitton Cup (the Americas’s Cup Challenger Selection Series) and the America’s Cup Finals.

Louis Vuitton has a day of live streaming events planned for March 7 ahead of its Paris Fashion Week presentation and Arts Décoratifs exhibition launch.

LV has teamed up with Louise Roe for the big day, with the British fashion journalist to host a live stream of Wednesday’s 10:00 F/W 2012 show at www.louisvuitton.com.

Then, from 20:00 Roe will provide red carpet access live from the launch of the Louis Vuitton Marc Jacobs exhibition at the French capital’s Arts Décoratifs.

Louis Vuitton launched a new short film series February 22 hoping to capture the essence of different cities from across the globe in relation to gender.

Hong Kong is the subject of the debut film, which presents the Asian destination as if it were a woman with appearances from students, various career women and rising star in Asian cinema Grace Huang.

Directed by Jean-Claude Thibaut, who has previously collaborated with Armani, the film is the first in a series to be uploaded on Louis Vuitton’s YouTube channel.