Bags you don't get

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#351
papertiger said:
They're not designed for the shoulder, and since the 1990s they've all come with leather straps. They feel great in the hand though and no worries about ruining the leather of the handle.
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I was told once by a Gucci SA that the first bamboo handle was introduced during the war (I can't remember exactly WWI or WWII) when material was very scarce and they didn't have metal to make handbag handles. The bamboo handles are bent while heating the bamboo chunks, and once cured, are very durable and develop a patina over time.
 
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#352
xiangxiang0731 said:
I was told once by a Gucci SA that the first bamboo handle was introduced during the war (I can't remember exactly WWI or WWII) when material was very scarce and they didn't have metal to make handbag handles. The bamboo handles are bent while heating the bamboo chunks, and once cured, are very durable and develop a patina over time.
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I heard that too.
 
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#353
xiangxiang0731 said:
I was told once by a Gucci SA that the first bamboo handle was introduced during the war (I can't remember exactly WWI or WWII) when material was very scarce and they didn't have metal to make handbag handles. The bamboo handles are bent while heating the bamboo chunks, and once cured, are very durable and develop a patina over time.
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1947 is the earliest patent for the first Gucci BTH, so post-WWII. There was actually a leather shortage (hence lots of cork or string wedge soles around this time) and as it took a lot of leather to make a proper handle Gucci used bamboo.

Here's Ingrid Bergman with one of the first BTHs with a baby/twins and one of her step-sons (or perhaps Pia in trous (?)) but around the time of the making of Journey to Italy 1954, so early 1950s when Italy (and all of Europe) was still suffering from acute shortages. The exact part used of the Bamboo is very precise, as is the heat treatment that also colours as well as bends the cane.

066490c5051c480b744bda77bd1c74b1.jpg

This is her own bag she uses in the film Journey to Italy when she goes exploring Italy without her husband and is thinking about her marriage. Notice her Whangee cane crook umbrella to match, indicating Gucci's inspiration for their handles was already common place, established by the East's influence on British dress through colonisation and trade with the Far East (her screen-husband, played by George Sanders, is a supposed typical uncommunicative, upper-middle class Brit of his time).
journey-to-italy-1954-005-ingrid-bergman-sat-with-parasol.jpg
 
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#359
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