Seventy years in the past, Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel launched what would change into one in every of her model’s quintessential merchandise: the two.55 bag. Named after its delivery month and yr — February 1955 — the type is taken into account a landmark in vogue historical past for its progressive design.
The two.55 was thought to be pioneering for incorporating a shoulder strap, a sensible characteristic impressed by troopers’ baggage that allowed girls to hold a purse on their shoulders, releasing their arms to do different issues. A characteristic that’s seen as customary these days was then unseen in girls’s put on, with baggage being primarily designed to be carried by hand or as clutches.
Mannequin Linda Evangelista in a complicated becoming for the Chanel Fall 1993 couture assortment.
Fairchild Archive/WWD
“Uninterested in carrying my baggage by hand and shedding them, I slipped a strap over them and slipped them over my shoulder,” Chanel stated of the bag’s creation, based on the model’s web site.
Chanel can be credited for including female touches to the shoulder bag, together with compartments for a lipstick and compact, and an internal zippered pocket that she deemed excellent for love letters, as beforehand advised by WWD in 2000.
Jacqueline Kennedy greets alumni on the White Home Tea Get together for Miss Porter’s College, Could 3, 1962.
Fairchild Archive/WWD
The unique 2.55 bag featured an oblong form and a entrance clasp often known as the Mademoiselle Lock, a reputation that referenced Chanel’s single standing. Different particulars of the bag additionally nod to Chanel’s life, together with the diamond quilted leather-based. A signature of Chanel’s, the quilted sample took inspiration from her love for horse driving and the equestrian coats and covers she would put on whereas racing.
Over the a long time, the two.55 design has been revised and reissued. Within the Seventies, then-creative director of the Chanel model Karl Lagerfeld phased out the Mademoiselle lock, introducing the interlocking CC closure. Then, in February 2005, for the fiftieth anniversary of the Chanel 2.55 bag, Lagerfeld launched the two.55 Reissue, reincorporating the Mademoiselle lock. The designer additionally created the 11.12, impressed by Chanel’s shoulder bag.
Chanel Fall 1993 couture, 2.55 purse assortment advance, Paris.
Fairchild Archive/WWD
Different reinterpretations of the two.55 noticed the type crafted from silks, suedes and denim through the years. Celebrities like Jacqueline Kennedy, Princess Diana, Jane Fonda, Kate Moss and Penelope Cruz carried the bag’s attraction by means of the a long time.
Immediately’s Chanel affords quite a lot of bag designs, with some being impressed by the two.55, such because the Chanel Basic Flap Bag, which differs from the 70-year-old design by that includes interwoven chain and leather-based straps as a substitute of all chain-link straps, and an interlocking CC brand twist-lock as a substitute of the Mademoiselle lock. Present choices of the two.55 type are priced from $5,200 to $11,700 on Chanel’s web site, relying on the scale.
