Longchamp is celebrating the 20th anniversary of ANDAM (Association Nationale pour le Développement des Arts de la Mode), which promotes emerging French and international fashion talent, with an unprecedented creative collaboration with three previous winners of the prestigious ANDAM Fashion Award.
Jeremy Scott, Charles Anastase and the design duo Bless were selected by ANDAM and invited to create limited editions of Longchamp's Le Pliage® bag, bringing their unique and avant-garde vision to bear on the groundbreaking foldable design that has become a cult classic and a staple of modern urban life.Jeremy Scott ( ANDAM Fashion Award Winner in 1998 and 2000) - with whom Longchamp maintains an ongoing creative partnership - has, with his trademark sense of humour, pictured himself as a "nouveau samurai", emerging from the bag in a red silk kimono.
Charles Anastase (ANDAM Fashion Award Winner in 2004), meanwhile, has chosen to use Le Pliage® as a blank canvas on which to create two delightfully poetic illustrations - a sketch of a pair of ballet shoes accompanied by the handwritten message "I could sleep 24 hours a day", and a drawing of Persian cats with the words "In my heart or in my hand".
Last but not least, Bless - true to the conceptual approach of designers Desiree Heiss and Ines Kaag (ANDAM Fashion Award Winners in 1999 and 2004) - have pushed the design of Le Pliage® to the limits, creating a bag that can be folded inside its own circular leather handles and worn as a bracelet.
Head of ANDAM Nathalie Dufour comments: "Here are three styles, three ideas, three ambiances, that reflect the diversity which it is ANDAM's mission to nurture. Longchamp should be congratulated on taking part in this game of transformation with such enthusiasm, going so far as to adapt its production methods to these amazing innovations. Longchamp has remained true to its philosophy and, once again, has associated its name with quality, savoir-faire and cutting-edge creativity."The three Le Pliage® bags, in a limited edition, will be available in the Longchamp boutiques andselected concept stores worldwide from 1st October 2009.
