It was some six decades ago that Céline Vipiana unveiled her first collections of leather goods, sowing the seeds of the eponymous maison that would become a significant player in the luxury fashion space today.
Even before then, Vipiana and her husband Richard had spent 20 years crafting made-to-measure shoes in their Paris boutique, first for children and later also for women. It was through this that they gained their initial following, but their move into accessories and ready-to-wear was the one that would cement Celine’s place in the world of luxury goods and fashion.
While parent group LVMH does not regularly provide financial information on individual labels in its portfolio, HSBC estimated in 2024 that Celine had generated revenue of about EUR2.6 billion in the year before.
Underpinning the brand’s success has been its distinctive focus on Parisian flair: effortless styles that evoke the ease of living in the French capital. This aesthetic is one that has carried through generations of designers, from Vipiana to Michael Kors in the 1990s and Michael Rider, who became creative director last October.
Perhaps most emblematic of Celine’s Parisian chic is the Triomphe motif, which can be found, among others, in the aptly named Triomphe bag. The story goes that, after her car broke down near the Arc de Triomphe, Vipiana was intrigued by the chains that surrounded the landmark, and translated this inspiration into a pair of interlocking ‘C’s.
As far as the brand’s history goes, the Triomphe bag is actually a relatively young icon; it debuted in 2019, after then-creative director Hedi Slimane looked through the Celine archives and landed on the Triomphe motif.
See also: Try these accessories for a set of subtle pops in your wardrobe
New as it may be, the bag’s clean, rounded rectangular shape and versatile range of colourways have made it a favourite among lovers of understated luxury and A-list celebrities from Taylor Swift to Blackpink’s Lisa.
But simplicity doesn’t always mean easiness. Each Triomphe bag comprises a whopping 89 pieces; skilled artisans are required at every step of the way to ensure things are all put together just right.
Creating each bag begins with measuring, cutting and skiving leather. The style comes in all sorts of hides, from smooth calfskin leather to more exotic skins such as lizard; there are also versions made with leather-trimmed canvas or textile.
Just preparing the leather pieces is a tall order; this is particularly so when dealing with exotic skins, which have variations in grain, colour and pattern. For bags made from water monitor lizard leather, for example, an artisan hand-cuts each hide so that the scales are kept symmetrically balanced, and to ensure that each panel lines up just right with the next.
The cut pieces of material are then creased, folded, moulded, hammered and stitched together to form the shape of the bag, before a strap and the gold-toned Triomphe motif clasp are attached.
In all, putting together a single Triomphe bag can take up to three weeks. The level of detail in each creation shows that while its design may look simple, the work that goes into it is anything but.
