Sex and The City is surely one of the most influential TV shows of the last decade. Featuring in one of its episodes would have been enough to ensure even the most mundane items such as handbags become iconic auras.
A book on the Baguette, which will hit shelves on June 1st, seems to be making this point even clearer.
But could you picture Sarah Jessica Parker walking around with a stick of bread like an old Frenchman? No? Well, it actually never happened.
The Baguette we’re talking of is a bag designed by Fendi which helped define Parker’s character, Carrie Bradshaw and became the talk of fashion bloggers and shopaholics alike as soon as it appeared in the series.
The book celebrating the 15 years of the Baguette, which will be sold in Fendi stores as well as in an array of online shops, will consist of 250 pages enclosed within a refined khaki cover.
Taking its name from traditional French loaf, this accessory is much more than just a bag designed to be carried under your arm.
Parker described the role of her treasured item as "a very big deal, and the gateway to everything else" and added that "It really opened the floodgates and influenced the storyline – especially Carrie’s habit of spending more money on fashion than her home”.
This was indeed a momentous shift even for Sex and The City’s stylist, Patricia Field, who, before the advent of the rectangular bag, would resort to thrift stores for most of the dresses used in the series.
The success of this bag with the public also has to be linked to the infinite number of versions available (over 1.000), which come in all sorts of materials such as pony skin, ostrich and mink, while the lavish details in pearls, sequins and gold thread add that unrivalled luxury feel.
Once the Baguette became one of the most recognisable pieces in world fashion even some of the world’s biggest artist joined Fendi for collaborations on limited editions.
Figures such as Damien Hirst, Richard Prince and Jeff Koons all left their own personal mark on this item.
Summing up the whole craze surrounding the Baguette better than anyone else, Fendi’s creative director, Silvia Venturini Fendi, said to the Times: “It was like a fever because it was so difficult to find and the minute you did, it wouldn’t be the one you were looking for as there would already be a new version out and you still couldn’t find the other one. It was like a crazy moment with people begging to be put first on the waiting list. Before that moment, no one really had waiting lists so it started this crazy mania, and also for limited editions.”
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