Louis Vuitton Keepall

The Keepall is a soft holdall in Louis Vuitton's brown Monogram canvas, a coated cotton printed with the house's initials and flowers. It is a long, flat-bottomed cylinder that slumps when empty and fills out when packed, closed along its whole length by a brass zip. Two rolled handles of natural cowhide rise from leather straps that run down the sides and under the body, and the leather darkens with use. The Keepall Bandoulière 50, filed here, measures 50 by 29 by 23 centimetres and adds a detachable shoulder strap.

It was made for a change in travel. The house had grown on rigid trunks and suitcases, and as journeys grew longer and moved to cars and trains, the Keepall offered a light, flexible bag in their place. Louis Vuitton now dates it to 1930. In the 1980s its own advertisements said 1924, crediting Georges Vuitton, son of the founder, with adding a soft travel bag resilient enough to bear the family name.

The bag outlived the trunks it was meant to accompany. In 1959 the house made its Monogram canvas more supple, and soft bags became the heart of the business. A 1982 advertisement shows a Keepall drawn in pen and ink, almost exactly the bag sold today, and claims that for over 50 years it had been hand-made to the same exacting standards.

Since then the Keepall has served as a blank for every new canvas and collaboration, from Damier and Epi leather to Stephen Sprouse's graffiti of 2001, which on some bags spelt out the word Keepall itself. The plain Monogram version has stayed in the range throughout, in sizes from 45 to 60 centimetres, the number giving its length. Louis Vuitton sells it in its own shops and online, and says the bag is now made in France, Spain or Italy.