This Spring, Fendi is riding the nostalgia wave by bringing back one of its most iconic creations: the Baguette. The purse debuted in 1997, was notably the first bag to be given its own stylistic name and quickly dominated the cultural zeitgeist, becoming synonymous with status and glamour. The Baguette jumpstarted the “personality” purse phenomenon, becoming one of the first “it bags” that every self proclaimed fashionista had to have. Fendi’s move follows in the footsteps of Dior, who brought back their equally legendary Saddle Bag last year.
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The dynamic and often ostentatious designs were a novelty on the minimalistic 90s purse market; “the diametric opposite of the wildly popular and utilitarian nylon backpacks from Prada that predated it,” as Vogue puts it. The Baguette’s slender form came in 1,000 style variations, from denim to bead encrusted to leather, and graced the shoulders of glitterati such as Elizabeth Taylor, who owned at least eighteen.
The last decade has seen a fast paced social media culture dominate the fashion industry, with brands falling out of public acclaim with the click of a button. It’s easy to see why fashion houses are leaning back on their decades-old cultural capital in order to stay on top and remind younger consumers why they’re so legendary.
And Fendi’s cultural capital is quite extensive–it exploded into the pop culture scene when taste making show Sex and the City featured the bag as an essential fashion statement. In one episode, style icon Carrie Bradshaw was mugged and proceeded to school her robber–and the world–when she declared that her purse is not just a bag, “its a Baguette!” Sarah Jessica Parker herself reprised the legendary line in a recent ad for the bag, reclaiming and reviving that loaf of a purse the world fell in love with all those years ago. #BaguetteFriendsForever.
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