Balenciaga reintroduces one of its most iconic product lines, Le City, available in selected stores worldwide and on balenciaga.com.
First launched in 2001, Le City has become synonymous with an era and a lifestyle, known for its enigmatic maximalist yet practical approach. Over twenty years since its initial debut, Le City makes a comeback as a reconstituted icon.
To celebrate the launch, Balenciaga unveils a campaign of portraits shot by famed fashion photographer Mario Sorrenti that highlights Balenciaga’s newly reintroduced Le City—an early aughts design that informed part of the brand’s current vocabulary.
The series features British fashion icon Kate Moss, Danish model Mona Tougaard, Chinese actress and singer Yang Chaoyue, and Korean singer Juyeon. The individuality of each talent is foregrounded against a grey background in striking still images and videos.
To reimagine the line, numerous archival City styles were studied and remodeled, effecting an amalgamation of the original’s accumulated attitudes. The bag’s hand- assembled, 25-panel construction replicates vintage versions, using the same dimensions of exterior and interior layers. Its defining features include reinforced corners with small metal buckles, thimble-like studs that form a distinctive design across the body of the bag, numerous interior and exterior pockets, and an overall aspect that gains a unique patina over time, giving it a timeless quality.
These characteristics, as well as the bag’s leather-strung zipper pulls and rivets have subsequently inspired the aesthetic of another Balenciaga line, Le Cagole, but Le City is created to echo the circa-2001 reference almost exactly, improved upon in terms of sustainable production.
Balenciaga Le City now comes in medium and small sizes, with adjustable shoulder and crossbody straps respectively. It is introduced in black, yellow, green, light purple, metallic steel grey, metallic silver, white, blue, and beige colorways.