The minute I saw this season's "Shadow" Birkin from Hermès, I thought, that one makes sense. Because as surreal as its embossed horizontal locking straps may be, they seem far less fiddly than the traditional arrangement of leaving the real, "working" ones open to dangle.
This bag got me wondering. Was it the first true example of the trompe-l'oeil bag genre?
The answer: Nope, not at all. There is a longstanding tradition of design houses issuing handbags under faux pretenses.
Some nice vintage examples:
This YSL tote
A lovely Roberta di Camerino velvet number (she made these a trademark)
A more recent Marc Jacobs example of a cleverly stitched clutch.So who knows what creativity lurks in the minds of luxe bag designers? Not only the Shadow knows.
(top photo from Harpersbazaar.com, by Toby McFarlan Pond)
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