Furla’s company history, from the beginning of the Twentieth Century to the dawn of the new millennium is reflected in a handbag with interchangeable flaps that becomes a portable time machine travelling across nine decades.
Furla building Milano
The FURLA Metropolis, available in five colors: Petal, Magnolia, Gold, Ruby and Onyx will have nine different flaps to narrate the story of the brand that began in 1927 and since then has traveled, in women’s hands for nine decades – keeping them company on their journey of freedom and independence across time and space.
Furla’s journey started in the Roaring Twenties: the age of Charleston and “The Great Gatsby” by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, where the wild parties in the French Riviera were all the rage in the story. The Twenties of Josephine Baker and Art Déco, gave birth to what we now consider modernity, the decade that consigned the Nineteenth Century to history. This decade was represented by a soft nappa leather flap with a velvet base and stud carrying the number “20” galvanized in light gold.
It continues in the Thirties: the Jazz Age, the decade of glamour, of Marlene Dietrich’s mysterious voice and magnetic eyes. The Thirties flap is made of tortoiseshell PVC with ivory colored mink fur with the inscription “30” laser-etched in white on the black tab.
Whereas during the Forties, the crazed rhythm of Swing, frenzied joy of music and dance, and songs celebrating newfound peace had its flap of the Forties handbag printed with a petal and ruby check. Then the number “40” is printed on leather ruffles and a bow, evocative of that decade’s pin-up girls.
Then the Fifties – the age of rock and roll, Elvis and the “greaser” gangs, and the explosion of colors post-WWII decade illuminated by the omnipresent jukebox lights had its flap in pink, turquoise and onyx with embossed colored parts, while the number “50” in light gold was set on the iridescent tab.
The Sixties are the decade of psychedelia, the Beatles, and the cool dry linear elegance of the Mods. Hence, the flap is patterned like a turntable resting on a desaturated Union Jack flag in gray, black and white instead of the traditional red, white and blue. The onyx black on the printed base has a long stud in place of the volume knob while the number “1960” is smacked in the center, where a vinyl LP’s label would be.
From the Sixties’ turntables to the Seventies disco revolution, this decade of glitter and absolute freedom of a new underground culture takes over the world. The flap is in glitter fabric with sails and mirrors like a Disco Ball hanging from the nightclubs’ ceilings, reflecting the light of a future that seemed stranger and more exciting than science fiction.
The Eighties representing Punk and the new wave presented Fashion as a provocation with brooches pinned to Queen Elizabeth’s nose becoming the epitome of that revolutionary stance. Therefore these are the years, for Furla’s journey, of the heart-shaped flap fastened with safety pins, studs and a denim tongue with a bold, unabashed “Furla 80” printed on the flap.
For the Nineties we travel across the ocean from Great Britain to the United States where the Age of Hip-Hop, rappers, “gangsta” style and “bling-bling” was the luxury of excess. The Nineties flap is made of suede, with an onyx and orange rubberized thermo-adhesive strip with white stitching like the one over the jersey of a Football team. It has a big “90” number smacked in the middle of the flap, embroidered with printed, convex leather.
Furla’s time travel and journey through nine decades of the Metropolis handbag ends in the 2000s, the “Aughts”: the decade of technology and dawn of the new Millennium. The flap is in a silver laminate lined with a folding plate, just like a robot’s complete with screw-shaped rivets and shimmering rhinestones. The 2000’s is a world expanded, flattened and interconnected by technology wherein our digital present was so unthinkable back in the Twenties when the Furla journey began.
In the Philippines, Furla is located at Central Square in Bonifacio High Street Central, Greenbelt 5, Newport Mall, Rustan’s Makati and Shangri-La Plaza Mall. Follow@ssilifeph on Instagram for more information.
