RED LETTER DAY: Forget matching your purse to your shoes.
French leather goods brand Joseph Duclos is launching a limited-edition handbag to celebrate the first artwork it has helped add to the Centre Pompidou‘s permanent collection.
Launched in 2022, the Joseph Duclos Acquisition Fund is working with the museum’s curators to identity and source pieces of art on the subject of light. The first is 1969 “Red Line” neon writing by Italian artist Maurizio Nannucci, one of the first to use neons in his practice.
It has been on display in the French museum since May.
“We are privileged to have this opportunity to add such an important masterpiece, ‘Red Line’ to the Centre Pompidou’s permanent collection, allowing visitors from all over the world a chance to see such an impactful work in person at the museum,” said Franck Dahan, owner and chief executive officer of Joseph Duclos.
In a nod to the Italian artist’s work, the brand’s Diane bag in black with black PVD metallic elements features a lacquered line of red script running along its metal frame. Five of the bags have been executed in lizard skin and another ten in Joseph Duclos heritage leather.
Creative director Ramesh Nair called the project “both an honor and a challenge,” given the complexity techniques that include applying lacquer on curved surfaces.
The two versions of the limited-edition bag will be available for sale from Tuesday at the brand’s Faubourg Saint-Honoré flagship, priced at 7,800 and 16,000 euros, respectively. The heritage leather version can also be purchased via its e-commerce.
Meanwhile, the acquisition fund has already helped the Centre Pompidou acquire a second work. “White Museum,” a 2023 piece by Italian visual artist and filmmaker Rosa Barba. Part of a series highlighting her expanded notion of sculpture, it involves a film projector that turns the landscape outside of the museum into a part of the installation.
Now owned by the Parisian museum, it will go on display after its renovation, due to start in the summer of 2025.