Loewe heritage display features Ava Gardner bag
14/02/2019
Archivists and conservationists worked with the Loewe Foundation to select a set of pieces from the brand’s past and to show off what the company called “more than a century of innovation in bag design”.
The Foundation explained that many of the items on show had come from family members of the original owners of the bags. “After looking after the bags carefully for years,” the organisation said, “these people have donated the bags to the company’s archives out of a desire to share the historic value of these products with everyone.”
Bags showing the geometric lines of the Art Deco period, the more rigid forms of the 1940s and the colourful designs of the 1960s all feature prominently. Loewe described the collection as a run through its history, which it said was sure to inspire admiration among visitors for “the perfection in the details, the respect for tradition and artisanal excellence that characterise Loewe”.
Perhaps the pièce de résistance in the display was a handbag purchased in the Gran Vía store in 1958 by Hollywood star Ava Gardner. The bag is in chocolate brown crocodile leather. Ava Gardner kept a house in Madrid for 13 years in the 1950s and 1960s and her time there is now the subject of a series by actor and director Paco León called ‘Arde Madrid’ [Madrid is burning]. The Loewe bag may feature in the series; Mr León’s research team has discovered that Ava Gardner bought the bag while visiting the Loewe store with writer Ernest Hemingway; Hemingway treated himself to a leather waistcoat on the same day.
Image: Loewe
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