STYLE Edit: How Gucci’s Alessandro Michele remade first lady Jackie Kennedy’s beloved ‘hobo bag’ for 2020
Although dubbed the ‘hobo bag’, the slouchy crescent-shaped handbag actually proved itself as an elegant evergreen fashion accessory, and aligned particularly well with the 1960s creed of free love, liberation and the most iconic woman of the era
Even the most stuffy of stylistas can’t help but smile when they hear about the latest handbag in Gucci’s Beloved line, the Jackie 1961.
Joining the GG Marmont, Dionysus and Gucci Horsebit 1955 in creative director Alessandro Michele’s Beloved line – the collection of handbags he holds dear and refreshes for every show – is the newest version of the iconic Gucci Jackie bag. The name alludes to the United States’ former first lady and style maker of the 1960s, Jacqueline “Jackie” Kennedy Onassis.
Michele’s reinterpretation of the historic Gucci silhouette has been dubbed the Jackie 1961 by the creative director (the year perhaps relatively more important for a designer who references historical periods as far back as 500BC).
Created in 1961, the bag was worn by the first lady numerous times in the 1960s and 1970s. Jackie Kennedy was seen wearing the hobo bag so often that it soon became known as “the Jackie”.
Although “hobo bag” sounds less than presidential, the slouchy crescent-shaped handbag actually proves itself as a rather elegant evergreen fashion accessory, and aligned particularly well with the 1960s creed of free love and liberation.
But the Jackie bag has had a long and storied history in the Gucci universe: the handbag has been conceived again and again throughout the decades under different Gucci tenures.
In 1999, Tom Ford for Gucci replaced the original and distinctive lobster lock of the Jackie with a more angular, rectangular piston. For autumn/winter 2014, former creative director Frida Giannini gave a more feminine nod to the Jackie with “The Jackie Soft” collection, offering soft pebbled leather finishes on even softer shapes. And, ever since current creative director Alessandro Michele took over the reins of Gucci in 2015, we have been wondering when the gaze of the curious “crow” of Gucci would alight on the Jackie.