The Icons - The Bucket Bag

In my past life as a lawyer, I could never get my head around the seemingly infinite types of bags out there, especially those that couldn’t fit an A4 manilla folder inside. There was the baguette bag that could barely accommodate a flip Motorola (yes, I’m going back a long way here); the bowling bag to be used without a bowling ball; and the clutch bag that rendered one of your hands non-operational. But my fashion awakening was right in the middle of the ‘It’ bag era, and I was obsessed. I’d learned all the bags by name (‘Antigona’, ‘PS11’, ‘2.55’), furiously re-pinned bloggers’ outfit pics, and started to scrimp and save to tick off my own wish list. This was to the bewilderment of my then sensible, scientist boyfriend, who was baffled why anyone would spend so much money on something just to carry your keys and wallet. 

At the tail end of that era – 2013 to be exact – the bucket bag burst onto my radar. Everyone, everyone, seemed to be after a Mansur Gavriel. But what was a bucket bag? It didn’t even sound luxe, recalling cleaning supplies or farming paraphernalia. But through that rendition, in a minimalist silhouette and supple leather finish in well-appointed in-between pastels, the bucket bag became a quotidian classic. I decided it was going to make me who I wanted to be: the effortlessly stylish woman of the world that I saw in Fashion Week street style shots. 

Now, a little googling will tell you that the bucket bag was invented long before, in 1923 by Gaston-Louis Vuitton. And it might surprise you (as it certainly did me), that it was to answer a very specific, and selectively relatable, need – to elegantly transport five champagne bottles in perfect security. 

Nearly 100 years later, this style has been extrapolated and hyperbolized. The silhouette is a mainstay in just about every brand’s repertoire. Although some have stayed faithful to the source material, keeping its signature large and slouchy paper bag shape, others have claimed artistic freedom in size, shape, and material – some of my favorites of the moment are from Acne Studios, Nanushka and Simon Miller. The bucket bag has been reinterpreted by so many labels over the years that its relationship to its very specific origin story has become tenuous at best. I have never seen anyone rock up with any champagne bottles in theirs, for example. 

Of course, this is what makes fashion so much fun; a form of creation defined both by its rules and rule-breaking. To qualify as a bucket bag, one must observe its functional design elements. It must, at a minimum, have a drawstring closure, which, by the way, was intended to hold the bottlenecks firmly in place during transport. The reinforced base merits extra points for historical accuracy, which at the bag’s conception was contemplated to withhold the weight of the products in question. When it comes to all other considerations, we are served a fresh take every time a heritage house decides to relaunch an archive version, or an impulsive upstart deconstructs it – mine, for example, is an iteration of the classic that takes some strategic liberties by RSVP, a very cool Parisian brand. Its points of popularity (although the truly discerning have always recognized its appeal) can be seen as time capsules reflecting different ways of living, whether the 1920s, when it was used as a chic way to transport champagne, or the 2010s, when bags became a calling card of sorts, to announce one’s profession and sartorial school of thought. The bucket bag, like most accessories, is more than just an object of desire. 

But I digress. I never did get my hands on a Mansur Gavriel, but the bucket bag archetype has well and truly earned a star player position on my arm candy dream team.