Leonardo Da Vinci: The first designer handbag?
Could Leonardo Da Vinci have been the first to have come up with a designer handbag?
It seems so!
An Italian leather goods company has started manufacturing a handbag that the artist, sculptor and scientist Leonardo Da Vinci sketched on a piece of paper over 500 years ago.
According to The History Blog, luxury handbag maker Gherardini has produced a limited edition of Da Vinci’s handbag, which historians say was sketched around 1497. Long before Gucci & Chanel girls! The original design was filed away in The Codex Atlanticus, a 12-volume book of notes, theorems and drawings that Da Vinci is believed to have amassed between 1478 to 1519. Along with the handbag, there are drawings of weaponry, notes on botany, a few math problems and even a few ideas for flying devices.
They’re calling it the Pretiosa (that’s Italian for precious, by the way), mainly because of its detailed decoration and handcrafted construction. Each calfskin bag is adorned with hand-sewn embroidery and carries a hand-etched brass handlebar. There are only 99 in existence, and while we don’t know what the price is going to be, we’d suggest saving your money and maybe finding someone who works for the company and taking them to a lovely meal. The bags go on sale March 1.
