Longchamp Le Pliage

Le Pliage is a tote of black nylon canvas cut in a trapezoid, wider at the mouth than at the base, with its top edge drawn up into two small points at the ends of the zip. Two long handles of brown grained cowhide, the house calls it Russian leather, rise from tabs stitched to the body. At the centre of the front a rounded leather flap folds over the zip and fastens with a press stud; on it is embossed the Longchamp jockey. The large size, reference L1899089, stands about 30 centimetres tall and weighs under 300 grams.

The bag was designed in 1993 for Longchamp, the Paris house founded by Jean Cassegrain in 1948, by his son Philippe Cassegrain with Isabelle Guyon. Cassegrain had worked with coated nylon since the 1970s, when he built a range of light luggage from it, and had made a folding holdall, the Xtra-Bag, that packed into its own case. Le Pliage took the idea further. Its name means folding, and the bag folds flat in a few movements to the size of a paperback, held closed by its own flap.

Marie Claire tells how Cassegrain asked the small leather goods workers at the Segré workshop, near Angers, to make one up just to test the market. The French Wikipedia records that the success was immediate, and that tens of millions have since been sold; by the mid-2010s the line made close to half the house's turnover.

The form has hardly moved. Sophie Delafontaine, artistic director from 1995, has issued it in other cloths and colours, and artists from Tracey Emin to Jeremy Scott have decorated it, but the flap, handles and fold are fixed. Since 2023 the canvas has been woven from recycled polyamide. Longchamp still sells the large tote in black, at its own shops and online.