Longchamp
Le Pliage (1993), Philippe CassegrainFounded in 1948 by Jean Cassegrain, and named after the famous Parisian racecourse, Longchamp is a French luxury leather goods company, mostly known for its iconic Le Pliage bag. Longchamps started as a manufacturer of luxury leather-covered pipes, then expanded into small leather goods, launching its first women’s handbag in 1971.
The company’s real breakthrough came with the use of nylon. In the 1970s, Longchamp was one of the first companies to create a nylon fabric luggage collection. In 1993, Philippe Cassegrain designed what would become the company’s most famous handbag: Le Pliage. The Le Pliage (which means ‘folding’ in French) is a handbag that folds into a distinctive trapezoidal shape the size of an envelope. Available in a wide range of colors and styles and carried by Kate Middleton, Mary Berry, Katie Holmes, Amy Adams and Alexa Chung, Le Pliage is considered one of the most popular handbags in the world.
The house of Longchamps is still privately owned and managed by the Cassegrain family.
Care has been taken to trace the ownership of any copyright material and to contact the owner. The author does not intend to infringe on anyone’s copyright for text, photos or otherwise. Anyone who feels that any item in these pages may have inadvertently breached their copyright should advise the author via the contact sheet, including a link to the page, so that appropriate remedial action can be taken.
