Bamboo Fashion is becoming High Fashion! We already know that bamboo clothing offers the luxuriously silky feel of high-end fashion lines whether it’s a beautiful tunic or a classic organic dress or a tasteful tea-length skirt. Now one can have a high-end bamboo accessory to accompany a bamboo wardrobe. Gucci, the ultimate in luxury, recently announced a new line of exclusive ‘One of a Kind’ New Bamboo bags for India, available exclusively at the House’s four boutiques in Mumbai and New Dehli.
The collection includes five New Bamboo bags available in three exclusive leathers: glimmering gold crocodile, a gold perforated Diamante pattern on black leather and a refined pastel pink (the pink bag available in three sizes). Though bamboo is only recently gaining in popularity, the New Bamboo is one of Gucci’s most successful handbag creations since its inception in 1947.
What makes the leather bags part of a bamboo line? Well, the bags are exquisitely trimmed with bamboo fringed tassels and feature a bamboo closure. While it would be wonderful to have a bag made completely from bamboo available from the high-end fashion house, the accents nod to what a plentiful resource bamboo is for India.
Making the bags a bit more unique (or ‘one-of-a-kind if you will), are the embossed “India Exclusive” tags on the mirror case. The bags are available (sadly only in India) starting in September 2012.
The Bamboo bag is part of the Gucci artisan line, some of which are being produced in plain sight of the buyer in Italy. In boutiques in Australia, some consumers are getting the chance to place their order directly to the maker. Not only will their unique, ‘one-of-a-kind’ bag take shape before their eyes, but it will also feature the owner’s initials and a mark to say it was produced by “The Artisan Corner,” to make it truly original.
Five artisans have spent the last two months showing off their multiple years of experience handcrafting these beautiful bags by visiting Gucci boutiques worldwide to create their bags. And, thankfully, the ‘New Bamboo’ bag is one of their most popular requests!
While the bags would take almost 14 hours to create in the Italian factory, they are able to compress the time because the bags’ component parts – python cuts with hand-inked scales and thin bamboo roots hand-sculpted for the handles of a design that hasn’t changed since 1947 – have been pre-crafted and sent from Italy.
