Euro Leather Icon

Founded in 1829 in Brussels, Delvaux is the oldest fine leather luxury goods company in the world.  And what I've found on ebay and elsewhere, it's often the handbag that Mrs. Manchester Whittingham Foxworthy III might daintily carry to the charity luncheon.

I've never been a fan of the design - I get the impeccable construction, the leather, the craftsmanship....but I dunno, I'm not crazy about the shininess or the logo of the bags prior to the one below....mostly just sour grapes, I suppose.  Or just too conservative for me.  As if I had five thousand bones to spend on a shiny handbag, anyway.

But Delvaux has this iconic status.  Maybe not so much in the US, but it certainly has quite a following in Europe. And with good reason....

image | lyst

From W Magazine:
Delvaux’s Le Pin satchel, which was big in the Eighties with über chic Euros (check out Princess Stéphanie of Monaco sporting a red one in her 1986 music video “Comme Un Ouragan”), had rather humble beginnings as a horse feed bag. Solange Schwennicke, the owner and former CEO of the nearly 200-year-old Belgian leather goods brand, was vacationing in Tunisia when she saw the canvas pouches, strapped around the animals’ necks and bearing tiny perforations so that the dust within the oats could pass through. Inspired by them, she introduced a leather variation in 1972, and this spring the family-owned house is reissuing it in supple calfskin (complete with punched holes at the bottom of the bag) and in a range of neutral shades. “When it is authentic, a creation is eternal,” says Schwennicke (available exclusively at Barneys New York; $1,690).

Former feedbag meets beautiful leather.  Not a bad combo.