1901: The Original Blueprint
In 1901, Louis Vuitton introduced the steamer bag, a companion piece to its legendary travel trunks. Designed for functionality, it was meant to carry dirty laundry or smaller essentials while traveling by ship. But look beyond its utilitarian purpose, and you’ll find the DNA of what we now worship as fashion staples:
A strong top handle
A structured rectangular silhouette
A leather flap closure
High-quality craftsmanship rooted in practicality
The steamer was a bag that worked, and like all great design, it transcended its original purpose. But while the steamer aged into history, its silhouette didn’t disappear—it quietly morphed.
Stolen Status: How Hermès Borrowed Louis Vuitton’s Blueprint and Built an Empire
Fashion’s biggest scam isn’t knockoffs—it’s repackaging the past and calling it luxury. Two of the most iconic bags in fashion—the Hermès Birkin and the Kelly—are globally recognized symbols of wealth, taste, and insider status. But behind their $10,000 price tags and waitlist clout is a design story that didn’t start in a private jet or on the arm of an heiress.
It started with a work bag. A Louis Vuitton steamer bag.
And somehow, the credit got lost.
June 6. Written by Ryan Packer| Editor and Chief of Plann Magazine
1935: Hermès Steps In With the Sac à Dépêches
Enter Hermès, the French luxury house best known at the time for equestrian gear. In 1935, they dropped the Sac à Dépêches, a structured leather handbag that looks—if we’re being real—very familiar. It had that same rectangular build, top handle, and flap closure. Functional. Elegant. Clean.
Then in 1956, the bag went viral (before viral was even a thing), when Grace Kelly used it to shield her pregnancy from paparazzi. Just like that, the Sac à Dépêches became the Kelly bag, cementing it as a cultural icon.
But here's the question: was Hermès innovating? Or just elevating what Louis Vuitton had already introduced 30 years prior?
1984: The Birkin Is Born—But Is It Brand New?
In 1984, Jane Birkin had a now-famous in-flight conversation with Hermès CEO Jean-Louis Dumas, complaining that she couldn’t find a bag that was both beautiful and functional. He sketched a design on the spot, and the Birkin bag was born.
But the result? Once again—a top-handle bag with a leather flap, structured build, and minimal exterior.
Sound familiar?
It’s hard to ignore the fact that both of Hermès' most famous bags are refined versions of the Vuitton steamer’s original architecture. Yes, they’re executed with Hermès’ precision and quality. Yes, they carry their own mystique and branding.
But let’s not pretend they were created from scratch.
The Fashion Industry’s Silent Habit
Fashion has a long history of lifting, remixing, and erasing. We praise originality, but we sell lineage. And when luxury brands rewrite history, they don’t do it with malice—they do it with silence.
Louis Vuitton never got credit for laying the groundwork. The steamer bag doesn’t show up on mood boards or get called out in influencer captions. But it should. Because without it, there’s no Birkin. There’s no Kelly. There’s just an idea that got buried under branding and a six-figure marketing rollout.
Why This Actually Matters
Because if we’re going to talk about "timeless design", we need to talk about where those designs came from. Fashion doesn’t move forward without acknowledging the hands that built the past.
The Birkin didn’t appear out of thin air in 1984. The Kelly wasn’t some divine revelation of form. They were evolutions—and fashion history needs to say that with its whole chest.
Next time someone tells you the Birkin is “the most iconic bag in the world,” you can tell them this:
It’s the Vuitton steamer bag—just dressed in Parisian privilege.