Jeremy Scott's Latest Longchamp Collab Is A Love Letter To New York — EXCLUSIVE

The word “iconoclast” gets thrown around a lot in fashion, but few creative forces live up to the definition. We can confidently say Jeremy Scott fits the bill. The prolific designer’s career has spanned some 30 years and has rewritten, broken, and thrown away every rule in fashion. He’s taken everything from stewardess outfits, the McDonald’s golden arches, and Windex bottles and run it through his wacky, unabashedly camp sense of style. His longest-running collaboration is with Longchamp, the classically French brand that has invited Scott to rework their signature Le Pliage tote bag for 20 years running — and Scott still remembers his first one, as he tells NYLON exclusively: “It's always held an esteemed place in my heart since I first fell in love with a solid green one, which I still have and still use. I was like, ‘Well, this is a perfect canvas for me.’” The latest in a long line of incredibly reworked Le Pliage bags is a brand-new tote that honors a home to both Scott and Longchamp creative director Sophie Delafontaine: New York.

While Delafontaine is still based in Paris, her brother lives in the city, and she can easily recall her first time in the city at 15 years old, visiting her aunt’s uptown leather goods store. For her, it was also the smart choice to host four Longchamp ready-to-wear shows later on in her career because “for me, it's a city of freedom,” she tells NYLON. It’s also the place she and Scott met 20 years ago exactly to celebrate his first-ever Longchamp bag in 2006.

Longchamp’s Soho store is an integral part of their storytelling, and the timing of this collection could not be more perfect. The masterminds at Comité Colbert are staging a retrospective at The Shed opening May 26 called “Hidden Treasures, 250 Years of Franco-American Luxury Stories,” and naturally, the Paris edition of Scott’s collaboration will be featured, among other treasures. The icon that is New York was yet another place of inspiration for Scott, who showed in the city for years with his namesake label and is full of iconography begging to be reinvented: “Whether they are people like Madonna or a stop sign, the Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty, the taxi cabs, Times Square... even, frankly, the stairs of the library at 42nd Street. It’s all different ways of seeing an icon. I love playing with that.”

The tension between France and America is evident in the newest Le Pliage bag Scott has designed, specifically the vintage postcards that make an appearance in this collaboration. This postcard is signed to New York, naturally, and builds on the previous cities they’ve honored, including Hollywood, Paris, and more broadly, Paradise. “I love the original postcard to Paradise because to me, it’s holiday. When I go to Hawaii, that's right there with me,” Scott tells me, gushing over his favorite Le Pliages of days gone by. Each city’s postcard has commemorated a moment in time for the brand, whether their 10-year anniversary in Los Angeles or, in this instance, the 20th anniversary of Scott and Longchamp’s commitment to creativity.

Their long-standing relationship has allowed Scott to not only play around to his heart’s desire, but to do so with little to no constraints. “There was no marketing plan at all,” Delafontaine tells me of Scott’s very first collaboration. “It was only based on relationships and creativity. I never was worried about what's going to happen. I'm very confident in his creativity, his vision, his taste, and his sense of humor.” His sense of humor led to some of the wackier versions of Le Pliage, like the one covered in a monster’s face with teeth bared (a favorite of Rihanna’s), or the tire-tread version, or even the one with his face on it.

While Scott won’t necessarily wear that one outside, he still gets a thrill spotting his “babies” out in the wild at airports around the world. And even if the design is from 20 years ago, the bags look great, as Scott divulges to me: “I mean, this is God's truth. I never thought about it until now, but I've never had a zipper break. I've never had a handle break. I've never had a snap break.” Beyond the lasting style of his unique vision, the reliability of a bag that can hold half your life in it is a testament to the gentle giant that is Longchamp. Where other brands think in seasons and years, Longchamp thinks in decades. That’s why having Scott as part of the family, 20 years on, feels like a homecoming and something worth celebrating.

The Longchamp x Jeremy Scott will be available in-store at all Longchamp New York boutiques and online in very limited quantities at longchamp.com on May 27.