Fendi celebrates the first 'it' bag: The Baguette

Italian fashion house Fendi reissued six styles and devoted an entire tome to what was arguably the first 'it' bag: the Baguette.
Celebrating the 15th anniversary of its legendary Baguette handbag with a chic new page-turner. In honor of the coffee table tomb, which chronicles the history of the bag available at Fendi stores.

Fendi's Baguette has been created in over 1,000 styles, toted across screens worldwide by Sarah Jessica Parker's Sex and The City character Carrie Bradshaw and carried by everyone from Madonna to Julia Roberts.

Over 250 pages are dedicated to the small, rectangular handbag which Silvia Venturini Fendi conceived back in 1997. Designed to be carried under the arm like a French loaf, the Baguette went on to become an accessories phenomenon, clocking up waiting lists around the world despite its eye-watering price tag.

As actress Sarah Jessica Parker explains: "Having the Fendi Baguette was a very big deal, and the gateway to everything else" she told the Financial Times of her SATC character's prized possession. "It really opened the floodgates and influenced the storyline - especially Carrie's habit of spending more money on fashion than her home."
Reincarnated in hundreds of versions, Mrs Fendi has chosen her six favourites styles which will be reissued in June to celebrate 15 years of the success story. She sought inspiration far and wide to create the bag's diverse array of adornments. "I was in the garden playing with my children when Leonetta (my youngest daughter) started picking daisies and arranging them on my jeans" she says of the denim style encrusted with beads used to create a flower motif.

Changing the landscape of the mainly utilitarian bag market with its fresh take on colour and embellishment, inside the book, French blogger Sophie Fontanel describes the moment she first came face-to-face with a Baguette: "Inside the boutique, one wall was mounted with little Fendi Baguette designer clutch bags. In true French fashion, I struck up a bit of banter with the first sales assistant I laid eyes on. I told her that being there was like being in the world's finest bakery wickedly replied that the advantage to a Fendi Baguette is that it comes without the crumbs."

Source: Olivia Bergin/Telegraph