In 2004, the French handbag-maker Longchamp launched their internationally recognised line of ‘Le Pliage’ bags, a practical, lower-priced handbag collection made from inexpensive materials such as nylon. To celebrate the line's 10-year anniversary, Longchamp asked artist Tracey Emin to collaborate on a collection.
Emin’s art is highly confessional and draws upon her life experiences in a variety of media that include story-telling, drawing, filmmaking, installation, painting, neon, photography and appliquéd textiles.
The artist included some of her favoured techniques to create the Longchamp line, including destruction and reconstruction of textiles, patchwork, embroidery and painting. The bags were linked to a narrative the artist had crafted. In Emin’s story, an ‘International Woman’ travelled from one city to another, in search of an ‘International Love’ with an ‘International Man’. They were released in low editions and sold out immediately.
Longchamp produced this bag in a limited edition of two hundred, each with a personal connection to the artist. Each copy carried a rosette upon which Emin drew the Longchamp logo. Each rosette also included a name of a street, city, or hotel which reminded the artist of a romantic moment or encounter from her own life.
The bag features an embroidered dragonfly on the front and a love message printed on the reverse that was handwritten backwards and can be read by holding the bag up to a mirror; it reads: 'Almost everyday - In fact the first moment of everyday I think about making love with you kissing you waking up saturated by your love you hold my hand all over this world.'
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