Louis Vuitton Speedy

The Speedy is a soft holdall of brown coated canvas printed with the Louis Vuitton Monogram, the interlaced initials and four-petalled flowers in gold. It has a flat base, rounded ends and a zip along the top, finished by a small brass padlock. Two rolled handles of natural cowhide rise from pointed leather tabs, and piping of the same leather runs round the ends. The size filed here, the Speedy 30, is about 30 centimetres long, 21 high and 17 deep, and today's version carries a detachable shoulder strap.

It began as a piece of luggage made smaller. Louis Vuitton says the bag was launched in 1930 as the Express, named for the rapid transit of the day, and designed by Gaston-Louis Vuitton as a compact version of the Keepall holdall that could be folded flat into a suitcase. Most later accounts repeat the year, though one Brazilian magazine gives 1933. At first it came in one size, 30 centimetres.

The bag became a handbag by degrees. In 1959 the house made its canvas supple enough for soft bags, and 35 and 40 centimetre sizes followed. Audrey Hepburn is said to have asked for a smaller one, and the Speedy 25 that resulted, usually dated to 1965, was carried by her through the decade. The pattern, the rolled handles and the padlock stayed as they were, and the leather darkens with use to a deep amber.

Since the 2000s the Speedy has served as a ground for collaborators, from Stephen Sprouse's graffiti to Takashi Murakami's coloured Monogram, while the plain brown bag has stayed in the range. A shoulder strap and a two-way zip were added in 2011 for the Bandoulière version, the form now sold. In 2026, for the Monogram's 130th anniversary, Louis Vuitton built a campaign around the bag and captioned it with its birth year, 1930.