It came to my attention that this month marks the 10 year anniversary of the Mansur Gavriel bucket bag.
This was a significant bag for many reasons. First, it debuted during the peak of the “It bag” era. Because it was a new indie brand on the scene, there were no boutiques; no retailers with long-standing brand relationships. It was incredibly hard to get. And everyone wanted one.
Mansur Gavriel was the proverbial fashion unicorn.
I, of course, was not excluded from this group (I own 4).
Back when they were extremely hard to come by, I wrote a post, How to Score a Mansur Gavriel Bag During Restock. To this day, it’s one of my most popular blog posts of all time.
I think what really set this bag apart – besides its elegant, simplistic design – was the pricepoint. Coming in between $500 – $700 depending on the size, it was accessible luxury. Louis Vuitton was just as coveted, but in a totally different price category. Mansur Gavriel had the same frenzied popularity, but it wasn’t that far out of reach for the average woman.
And thus a perfect storm was born.
Did you own one?
It’s crazy to me to look back at some of the retailers that carried Mansur Gavriel – like Barney’s. It truly makes this “It bag” phenomenon feel like an eternity ago.
While Instagram has paved the way for a new era of “It bags,” I don’t think I’ve seen a 2013-Mansur-Gavriel-level-frenzy in modern-day. The closest I can come up with is the Bottega Veneta pouch (I have one of those too). Both with the two pricepoints being so different, I think the Mansur Gavriel bucket bag remains in a category all its own… 10 years and counting.
Mansur Gavriel’s Memorial Day sale will get you 20% off with code RAINBOW20.