The Helaine

The Helaine

In 1984, Jane Birkin was on a flight from Paris to London. Her straw basket spilled in the overhead bin. The man sitting next to her listened while she said she could not find a bag that worked for her life. He sketched one on the back of an airsickness bag before they landed.

This is how a lot of the bags we remember got their names. Grace, in 1956, holding hers in front of her stomach to keep the paparazzi from the pregnancy. Jackie, photographed so often with the same shoulder bag that Gucci eventually gave in and put her name on it. Diana, given one as a gift by the First Lady of France, carrying it until the end of her life.

None of them asked. The bags were named after them because someone was paying attention. A designer noticed how a specific woman moved through the world, built an object that fit her, and named it after her as a kind of receipt.

This doesn't really happen anymore. Bags get named after people for marketing reasons now. The old version was a private thing that became public. The new version is a public thing pretending to be private.

Olivia Helaine is a friend of mine. She goes from a morning class into the rest of her day without going home. There has never been a bag that worked for that…small enough to carry, large enough to hold all of the things. So we made one.

Ours is called the Helaine. More about it soon.