I have always loved Gucci's use of bamboo. I have some strappy sandals with bamboo heels, a wallet with a bamboo turn-lock closure, shoes with bamboo adorned horsebits, bamboo print Boston bag, bamboo keychain.... Oh, and not Gucci, but I also have the gorgeous Tiffany Bamboo Nature hoop earrings (the style has since been sadly discontinued).
What I really lust for now is the new Jackie bag with the bamboo-topped tassels. As I've lamented before, it's not going to happen because the bag is $2100. That's just too crazy even for me!
Here's the history of bamboo at Gucci: The bamboo-handled bag, was developed in a Gucci backroom in Florence in 1947, by craftsmen who were charged to muster all their powers of innovation to think their way around war-time shortages - yet still make objects that met the Gucci standards of desirable exclusivity. It is also a testament to the booming craftsmanship and design that put Italy on the map after World War II. Once it was articulated and attached to the bag by four metal loops (using the least amount of the precious commodity possible, in the on-site forge), the bamboo handle became a piece of design history.
Over the decades, the bamboo went beyond its origins as a pragmatic solution, and became a device used on generations of new bag shapes, gradually transforming itself into a Gucci visual code. Bamboo-inspired patterning has branded multiple products - from umbrella handles to headscarves, watch-straps and jewellery, and has even been carved wittily into a pair of golden stiletto heels. It is a part of the House's heritage - like the horsebit, green-red-green webbing and the GG - that has proved amazingly capable of time-travelling, staking its place in the fashion of the moment according to what design calls for at the time.
