This Old Thing? T&C Reviews: Box Bags
This Old Thing? T&C Reviews: Box Bags
Leena KimSat, February 28, 2026 at 2:00 PM UTC
0
This Old Thing? T&C Reviews: Box Bags Carolina Herrera/Paramount Pictures/Getty
We know all about the legend of Grace Kelly’s Hermès. The baby bump. The paparazzi. A brilliant PR coup and a legacy forever sealed. But it is worth remembering that before there was a Kelly, there was a Mark.
Mark Cross, that is. The American saddlemaker turned leather goods company was owned by the family of Gerald Murphy, one half of the most glamorous couple of the 1920s, who, with his wife Sara, famously transformed the sleepy French Riviera into a glittering summer playground for wealthy expats. By the ’30s they had returned stateside so he could take over the family business—and steer it through the Great Depression.
1925
Photo credit: Edward Steichen/Getty Images
Jazz Age vanity cases were exquisite gem-studded treasures—great for stashing lipstick and cigs.
1954
Photo credit: Paramount Pictures
Grace Kelly sprinkled her stardust on a Mark Cross bag in Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window.
In 1954 he orchestrated what is considered the first product placement in a film—ever enterprising, those Murphys!—when he designed a boxy bag for Grace Kelly’s chic couture-clad character in Rear Window. (Alfred Hitchcock was a friend.) “It’s a Mark Cross overnight case,” she tells Jimmy Stewart in one scene. “Compact, but ample enough.” Turns out it perfectly fit her seductive negligee, among other sleepover essentials.
And despite its being overshadowed in the public imagination by Kelly’s Kelly two years later, true in-the-know loyalists have long appreciated the cinematic importance—and investment potential—of that original overnight case (there is currently a wait list for it).
Advertisement
1966
Photo credit: Bettmann/Getty Images
First Daughter Lynda Bird Johnson had two pieces of arm candy: beau George Hamilton and her Enid Collins bag.
2023
Photo credit: Jeremy Moeller/Getty Images
A miniaturized version of Louis Vuitton’s iconic trunk requires the same level of precise craftsmanship.
Perhaps some credit for that should go to the merits of box bags per se. There is an unmistakable allure to those sharp angles and sleek lines. They suggest a measure of order in a crazy and chaotic world. They hold a sense of mystery—what treasures inside could possibly warrant such strong, hard-shelled protection? Not to mention their jewel box quality (see: Cartier’s Art Deco–era vanity cases, which were made of onyx and gold and covered in diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and pearls). Or the wonderfully whimsical wooden boxes created by Enid Collins in the ’60s. Some she embellished; others she painted. Many featured cheeky phrases the designer liked to call “conversation starters.”
Carolina Herrera’s spring 2026 show, which was staged in Madrid’s Plaza Mayor, introduced the Mimi, named for Mrs. Herrera’s mother-in-law. Carolina Herrera Mimi box bag, available at Carolina Herrera boutiques. Carolina Herrera
“It’s that dialogue between ease and structure,” says Wes Gordon, who introduced his own take on the silhouette in his spring 2026 collection for Carolina Herrera, an extravaganza that took place in Madrid’s Plaza Mayor (blanketed in a pink runway for the occasion). He named it the Mimi, after Mrs. Herrera’s mother-in-law, a singularly stylish woman who carried her lipstick in a little box. “I loved the idea of taking something personal and turning it into an object with real presence,” he says. The Mimi will hold a few more things, of course, and it comes in a range of colors for the woman who is, in Gordon’s words, both “joyful and regal.” Those aren’t mutually exclusive qualities, by the way.
This story appears in the March 2026 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW
You Might Also Like
12 Weekend Getaway Spas For Every Type of Occasion
13 Beauty Tools to Up Your At-Home Facial Game
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
