Sac New Bamboo Collection Printemps Ete 2010
For several years, the handbag has taken an increasingly important place in fashion and is often the first act of love for a prestigious brand. This luxury accessory has become over the years an object of desire and turns into a piece of love when we can finally slip a part of our life into it.
There are some handbags that never go out of style and survive the ages while remaining current. Some people mistakenly call them “it bags” but they are by no means ephemeral. Timeless would be more appropriate for them as they cross the ages and generations with always so much class and style. Chic when worn with an evening dress, they also look great with jeans and a nice jacket whatever the season.
The Bamboo bag by Gucci is one of those timeless bags. This model created 64 years ago is a true jewel of craftsmanship. The original bag was a small structured handbag made of boar with a curved bamboo handle, created in the Florentine back room in 1947. To cope with the shortage of materials in the post-war period, craftsmen had the bright idea of turning a piece of bamboo into a bag handle by polishing and bending it in a semicircle to give it a smooth and shiny appearance. Articulated and attached to the bag by four metal buckles, the bamboo handle gave birth to the Bamboo bag for our greatest pleasure. This model has since become an iconic example of Gucci’s exceptional craftsmanship.
Vanessa Redgrave, backstage of
Frida Gianinni, Gucci’s creative director, revisits this classic this season, offering a New Bamboo made in the same way as the original. Offered not only in its historical form, but also in new dimensions more adapted to our 21st century lifestyle, the New Bamboo requires 13 hours of work to ensure the perfection of its details. Smooth and shiny raised leather edges on the outside, bamboo handle with a leather strap and a second metal chain strap with a braided base, fringed tassels, are all details that make the difference and perpetuate the great love story of women and the Bamboo bag.
The new Spring-Summer 2010 collection of the New Bamboo is the opportunity for the brand to propose a travelling exhibition dedicated to the emblematic bag: Bamboo Forever. This exhibition traces the history of the Bamboo through vintage models from the House’s archives and photographs of celebrities wearing the bag over the years, including Ingrid Bergman and Vanessa Redgrave. Other historical images show the production and the different advertising campaigns of the bag. A video is even proposed showing the evolution of the bag over the years, as well as the various stages of manufacture that are always carefully respected in the workshops of Gucci in Florence.
The exhibition, held in Paris at the Gucci store in Printemps Haussmann, will travel to major European cities where it will be open to the public for a limited time.
The opportunity to see and understand what makes a handbag a timeless must-have that is part of fashion history.
I love Bamboo and I love the New Bamboo even more.
Photo credit Vanessa Redgrave: © Tazio Secchiaroli with the courtesy of Gucci France
Marie-Odile Radom
Cette publication est également disponible en : Français (French)
