Innovation
As A Legacy

Since 1876, Lancel relentlessly creates, innovates, precedes the trends and nurtures its unique pioneer’s instinct. Over time, the iconic Parisian house offers bold and elegant products to keep pace with active modern women. Born in the bustling Faubourgs area, it allies aged-honoured craft with creative flair. Energetic and vibrant, functionality is coupled with fanciful touches to meet the needs of contemporary women. Precursor at heart, Lancel initially designed products for smokers, incorporating clever details such as briar pipes fitted with a safety coating (1893) or its very first automatic pocket lighter in 1927 which “neither soiled fingers nor gloves”. Its bags, truly versatile multi-faceted purses, later became an indispensable fashion accessory, cleverly replacing women’s pockets. Launched in 1987, its bucket bag still remains today an iconic design and embodies Lancel’s avant-garde style. Innovation also lies at the heart of its luggage range, such as the Mistral bag made with resistant Nylon canvas, which revolutionised travel in 1982. Founded by Angèle and Alphonse Lancel, at 20 passage des Petites Ecuries in Paris, the artisanal pipes factory was transformed into a luxury brand by Albert Lancel in 1901 during the Parisian Roaring Twenties. Its four categories of products for women, men, lifestyle and travel evolved with times and encapsulate the Parisian chic. Settled at 8 Place de l’Opéra since 1929, its flagship store shelters the Lancel spirit. One can glean the new trends and novelties of the brand at this emblematic address where windows open up over the buoyant Parisian life. Lancel keeps up with times and imposes a signature coveted by the impetuous and playful Parisian women, promoting luxury for all.

Through ingenious processes and original patented inventions, Lancel embraces modernity. Always forward-thinking, it combines the traditionnal know-how of a leather goods manufacturer with a luxury spirit, twisted with a touch of fantasy. Intuitive, it constantly reinterprets its heritage and revisits classical codes to keep up-to-date. Acquired in 2018 by Italian group Piquadro, the label remains deep-rooted in its history, faithful to its heritage. Relying on the high quality of its finishing touches, it renews its commitment to carry on tradition. Prototypes are firstly designed in its Paris studio directed by a “Compagnon du Devoir”, a master craftsman. The new products are then manufactured at the Italian group’s workshop near Firenze. This unique process for a leather goods manufacturer reflects its emphasis on excellence.

At the heart of the Lancel style lies fantasy, subtle art combining tasteful refinement with a balanced mix of playfulness. Lancel bags attract attention without being provocative, cleverly playing with timeless references infused with modernity. A true concentrate of joy, they conceal unexpected details under their false air of classic bags: a storage compartment, a double-bottom drawer, a ring casket, a flap or a secret pocket. Both elegant and facetious, these clever bags add up functionalities and turn into either a portable desk or a treasure chest to become a stylish partner throughout the day. They embody joyful freshness and celebrate spontaneity, like a highly coveted treasure that emphasizes the style of Parisian women, in turn lover, business woman or “femme fatale”.

Best-seller from mother to daughter since 1987, the bucket bag establishes itself as the emblematic IT-bag and crosses ages without a wrinkle. This smooth purse inspired by the medieval “aumônière”, with its ample volume and drawstrings, makes it the ideal partner to the Parisian woman in her tumultuous life. Mini or maxi, bi-coloured or multicoloured, it adorns playful fabrics and daring colours, from fuchsia grain-embossed leather to petrol-blue mat croco-embossed finishing. Labelled Elsa, Premier flirt or Huit, the bucket bag is an always reinvented Ode to Joy, icon of contemporary look for the liberated, spontaneous and playful women.

Joining Lancel in 2017, Barbara Fusillo instills a new freshness into the house’s icons. She draws inspiration from its rich history and archives whose 3000 leather pieces and 1500 lifestyle pieces are an ideal playground for expression. She injects creativity to redefine French elegance and agilely balances classic with contemporary look. Sensuality of materials, boldness of colours, preciousness of finishings: refinement is never pompous and is always devoted to the art of charming. The design studio reinterprets the codes of the house, playing either with the ornemental details of clasps or with unique mixes of textures. It also ventures into contrasts and vibrant colours: pale green, flashy yellow, blush pink, petrol blue. It emphasizes the house trademark “Lancel Red”, always bright, captivating and seductive. Intuitive and inventive, surprising or sophisticated, Lancel’s creativity always strives where you least expect it. It magnifies exceptional leathers to impart either structure or suppleness to the bags. It masters contrasts and enhances the skins: cracked, metallic, glossy, cut, draped, layered, knotted, folded or pleated like an Origami. It embraces precious materials and cultivates the sense for detail, from refined finishings to adorned clasps, true jewels giving a unique style to the bags: padlocked or fitted with a golden chain, disguised as satchel buckles or tie knots or even clock clasps. They are clicked, tilted, slid, folded or pinched, always revealing a clever device. Another distinctive symbol is the “Guilloché”, an engraved signature pattern that draws undulating or broken lines. It intertwines with symmetry and adorns claps, buttons or buckles. With an utmost finishing touch, the iconic and eternal Lancel “L” is stamped on leathers and canvasses, subtle and elegant quality seal.

In 2020, Lancel reconnects with the legendary modernity and happy freedom of its emblematic years. Through a collaboration with creative agency Al Dente, the house reveals a new image full of life and in tune with modern times. Anchored in the iconic and visionnary style of the brand, the new Autumn-Winter campaign “Play with Lancel” celebrates movement and injects a new and highly attractive freshness. Shot by photographer Mel Bless, model Julia Banas diffuses a positive energy. She plays with the Lancel logo and codes in a vibrant and dynamic choregraphy. Iconic bags are back this season with a new momentum and return to the front stage with a fiery spirit: the famous Elsa bucket bag, the Ninon, the Premier Flirt and the last-born “bag of tricks” Alice, in its classic or mini version.