Can a woman’s handbag be a Killer Brand?  Of course.  Anything can become a Killer Brand.  The Chanel Bag, known as the 2-55 bag because it was first designed in February, 1955, is a true Killer Brand.

It was built on the expecation that if you owned one and used it, you distinguished yourself as a fashionable person who was not overcome by fashion.  It delivered style with simplicity, and was meant to sustain its style from year to year without change.   According to the brand records there were new market conditions that led Coco Chanel to develop the bag.  The post WW II “cocktail” party had arrived, particularly among the wealthy and influential.  Chanel herself did not like cramming everything into a small evening bag and trying to hold it in her hands at the same time that she negotiated a martini in a crowd.  She thought women needed to be able to wear their bag on their arm and keep their hands free for touch, greeting, etc.  So she added the chain handle.  She always insisted that women secretly adored “chains,” but many who knew here thought that the chain was a personal throwback to her fascination with janitorial keys on a chain from the orphanage where she was raised.

She created a bag that would go with everything and disappear so that women did not compete via their handbags, and one that was functional, including a secret compartment where a love note or phone number could be discretely stuffed.

The quilted pattern she copied from the silk jackets worn by the boys at the racetrack.  She loved the horses and adored the neatness of the little quilted jackets worn there.  Above all she was creating a “neat” bag.

The Chanel Bag stood out without standing out.  The crossed C’s logo was not added until the 80′s, so this was not a brand identity “graphic” success as some of today’s designer inputs seek.  It stood on its on.  The Chanel Bag has consistently demanded a premium price that women in the know will still pay or wish that they could.