To mark the Chinese New
Year 2019 Year of the Pig – Longchamp is renewing its
collaboration with Tao Liang, aka Mr. Bags. One of China’s most influential
fashion bloggers, his passion for – and encyclopaedic knowledge of – luxury
handbags have made him a social media phenomenon followed by millions of
“bagfans” on Weibo and WeChat.
For last year’s hugely
successful debut, Mr. Bags revisited Longchamp’s iconic Le Pliage® Cuir, which
is his personal bag of choice for travelling the world. This year, he returns
to the theme with a wonderfully witty interpretation for the Year of the Pig –
an animal which, for the Chinese, is an age-old symbol of wealth and abundance.
Longchamp’s Le Pliage® Cuir top handle bag in
lambskin leather, in black, and in metis leather, in pink, is the backdrop on
which Mr. Bags conjures a pig in a series of bold white lines: on the front, a
curly tail; on the back, a pair of pointed ears and two dots for eyes; and hidden under the familiar flap, so only the bag’s owner knows it’s there – a
tiny fart!
Available in black or pastel pink, the top handle bag is
joined by the Le Pliage® Cuir travel bag in black lambskin leather, whose
zipped outside pocket for a passport and tickets – a detail insisted upon by
the much-travelled Mr. Bags is cleverly integrated into the drawing.
The collaboration extends
to two further designs: a pouch with a zipped front pocket shaped like a pig’s
snout, in black lambskin leather or pastel-pink metis leather; and a tote in
transparent PVC with a pink, snout-shaped coin purse. For this, Mr. Bags was
inspired by one of Longchamp Creative Director Sophie Delafontaine’s early
reinterpretations of the House icon: Le Pliage® Aquarium, launched in 1998,
which was memorably pictured with a fish swimming around inside it!
Following the demand for
last year’s collection, the bags will be available in more stores and more
countries worldwide, with personal appearances by Mr. Bags to follow in Los
Angeles and Paris. The first stage of the roll-out will include all the leather
bags, with the transparent top handle bag to launch by early February. Capturing the playful
spirit of the collaboration, an animated film will launch on social media featuring the cute Mr. Bags character
created by Tao Liang himself.
Reminiscent
of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince – appropriately for the prince of handbags – the cartoon hero is seen
chasing madly after a pig. He slips, jumps and
bounces from one Longchamp bag to another, until he finally finds his own bag and gives it a big hug. Celebrate the Year of
the Pig in style with Longchamp and Mr. Bags.