By IMRAN JALAL,
So this was what post-War chic looked like. Well at least in Italy.
Right after the Second World War, materials were truly scarce for the luxury goods maker. The Florentine-based company's solution for its handbags was not to resort to anything synthetic or artificial; rather it turned to something more economical and out of the box.
The answer was to import Japanese bamboo which was relatively cheaper: It could easily be heated and curved to form top handles of bags when it is cooled. The fashionable set of the day from the likes of Queen Paola of Belgium, the actress Vanessa Redgrave and Italian actress Ilaria Occhini lapped up the design and were often photographed with the bag in their hands.
Seventy years on, the same technique is still used to craft Gucci's bamboo bag handles. While the design serves as creative director Alessandro Michele's biggest muse for his handbags for Fall/Winter '17. At the brand's runway show in February, models walked down the catwalk carrying not just remakes of the original '40s Bamboo bag but also a slew of new styles with the wooden handle.
Among them? A wicker picnic basket-slash-box bag and plenty of top handle bags with whimsical animal-head ornaments. Here, we zoom in on the details and tell you more about what you need to know about the new Bamboo editions.