Explainer / How the Chloé Paddington revolutionised handbags today: launched by Phoebe Philo in 2005, the coveted ‘It’ bag kick-started the hardware trend with a simple padlock

Apr 2 , 2023

When Gaby Aghion founded Chloé in 1952, she envisioned a modern future for fashion using romantic, spirited designs with the right amount of feminine-masculine energy

Phoebe Philo was the maison’s creative director from 2001-2006, and during her tenure she made waves in the industry, introducing the Bracelet and Silverado bags before the iconic Paddington

Gaby Aghion foresaw the future when she founded Chloé in 1952, establishing what would be one of the world’s first luxury, yet ready-to-wear fashion houses. Moving away from the stiff formality of haute couture, Aghion aspired to make romantic, cool, spirited and glamorous designs, personifying the aspirations of young women from France and beyond. Her design ethos played with the tension between the feminine and masculine, which remains a defining aspect of the Chloé attitude.

When Phoebe Philo became the maison’s creative director in 2001, she ushered in a new era of leather goods and revolutionised the scale of what handbag design could incorporate. Stylishly decorative and visually chaotic, she loaded her bags with industrial-sized chunks of metal, helping invent what was to be known as handbag hardware.

The world had never seen anything like it. From the Bracelet to the Silverado, her bags sold out everywhere they landed. But the zenith of Chloé’s leather goods and handbags came in 2005, when the British designer created the Paddington.

The creator of the Paddington bag, Chloé’s creative director from 2001 to 2006, Phoebe Philo. Photo: David Sims

Following Chloé’s core values of freedom and travel, the Paddington leaned on Left Bank bohemianism, a roughed-up sweetness that featured worn-in leather and soft, rounded edges that were described as having a “luggage feel” with oversized proportions.

Buckles were put on both ends and the grand show-stopping visual of the bag was an enormous, leather-wrapped padlock hanging from the bag’s centre and weighing nearly half a kilogram (when empty, the bag is reported to weigh in at a shoulder-busting 1.3kg). Philo’s nod towards the literal – an industrial padlock to convey the handbag’s role of safekeeping – took the world by storm.

It was the most coveted bag of the moment. Every single one of the 8,000 Paddingtons created for spring 2005 was spoken for before even having an opportunity to reach shelves. Net-a-Porter sold 376 Paddingtons in the first 36 hours online and had over 700 names on a global waiting list. These were groundbreaking numbers. Practically overnight, the Paddington had reached legendary status worldwide.

Hilary Duff at the Olympus Fashion Week in New York in February 2006. Photo: Sinopix

Handbag hardware is nearly ubiquitous now, with many brands incorporating hardware into their designs or even selling it as a stand-alone accessory, as charms, locks, clasps and various drippings. The Paddington helped introduce a new era of handbag design that still remains to this day – hardware handbags that speak to the merging aspects of femininity and masculinity, practicality and boldness.

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