History of Bags

It Bag is a colloquial term from the fashion industry used in the 1990s and 2000s to describe a brand or

type of high-priced designer handbag by makers such as Chanel, Hermès or Fendi that becomes a

popular best-seller.

One of the first designers credited with creating the concept of the easily identifiable "status bag" was Giuliana Camerino, founder in 1945 of the Venetian fashion house Roberta di Camerino.

Camerino handbags were instantly recognisable due to their artisan-made hardware and

distinctive use of fabrics formerly reserved for clothing.

Her innovations included in 1946, bags patterned with a trellis of R's (foreshadowing Gucci G's), woven leather bags in 1957 (predating Bottega Veneta) and in 1964, she designed a handbag with a unique articulated frame which was later taken up by Prada.

The fashion houses of Hermès, Chanel and Louis Vuitton created handbags that became famous in their own right

well before the concept of the "It Bag" took hold.

In 1935 Hermès created a top-handled leather bag called a Sac à dépêches as part of their leather goods range.

In the early 2000s the conceptual New York label Slow and Steady Wins the Race, founded by the Chinese-

American designer Mary Ping, offered a range of consciously affordable bags deliberately based on It Bags by Balenciaga, Dior and Gucci, but made in inexpensive calico with metal work from hardware stores mirroring

the original bags' exclusive designer fittings.

These bags were Slow and Steady way of challenging the concept of consumerism and inbuilt obsolescence in

traditional fashion manufacture.

By 2008 the popularity of the "It Bag" was reported to be in decline.

In May 2011, whilst acknowledging that there would always be customers for expensive status bags, Celia Walden reported that the concept of the must-have

"It Bag" was no longer in fashion.

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