FLOAT 100 · Handbags · No. 83
Balenciaga Hourglass Small
Demna took the cinched waist Cristobal Balenciaga cut into his suits in the 1940s and turned it into a small leather bag with a curved base, a bag that rocks instead of sitting still and became the house's best-known handbag of the 2020s.
- Year
- current
- Maker
- Balenciaga
- By price in handbags
- 93 of 100
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- Balenciaga, Paris
- Designer
- Demna, creative director of Balenciaga from 2015 to 2025
- Introduced
- Winter 2019 collection
- This entry
- Hourglass Small top-handle bag in bitonal used-effect calfskin, brown
- Inspiration
- The hourglass and Basque-waist tailoring of Cristobal Balenciaga
- Size
- About 9 in wide, 5.5 to 5.9 in high, 3.9 to 4 in deep, depending on the listing
- Hardware
- Aged-gold, with the B logo on the flap
- Made in
- Italy
- Signature detail
- A bowed base on which the bag rocks rather than stands
A waistline turned into a handbag
The Hourglass bag began with a jacket. In 1939 the first hourglass sketch entered the house of Cristobal Balenciaga, and a winter 1939 suit already showed a jacket drawn in at the waist and flaring again over the hip. The full line arrived with the tailored suits and peplum jackets of summer 1943, and by 1945 the flare had become a full basque, a shape the house repeated season after season.
Balenciaga built the curve without corsets. On a white pique suit from spring 1950, long curved seams run from the armholes through the waist into the basque, with no horizontal join; the hip is built out with internal padding, and the body keeps room to move inside the shape. The house still lists that tailored jacket among its icons, next to the cocoon coat.
In the winter 2019 collection, Balenciaga translated that profile into leather goods. The Hourglass was a small top-handle bag with a flap, drawn in at the middle and flaring at the base. Its distinguishing trait is the base itself, which bows upward so that the bag rests on a curve, lifted at both ends, rather than sitting flat like a conventional structured bag.
From Getaria to Demna
Cristobal Balenciaga was born in 1895 in Getaria, a fishing port on the Basque coast; his father was a mariner. He opened his first shop in San Sebastian and later expanded to Madrid and Barcelona, and moved to Paris in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. Sources give the founding of his San Sebastian house as 1917 or 1919. He closed the house in 1968 and died in 1972.
Demna, born Demna Gvasalia on March 25, 1981, in Sokhumi in Soviet Georgia, earned a master's degree in fashion design from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp in 2006 and co-founded the label Vetements with his brother Guram in 2014. He succeeded Alexander Wang at Balenciaga in 2015. Over his decade there, revenues rose from about $390 million to nearly $2 billion.
The Hourglass came at a turn in Demna's Balenciaga. Commentators at the time saw it as a step away from the bold logo bags and graphic pieces that had defined his early seasons and as the house's first move into a sleeker accessories line. Demna left Balenciaga in 2025 and was named creative director of Gucci that March; Pierpaolo Piccioli was appointed at Balenciaga in July 2025.
The Small in used-effect calfskin
The Small is the second largest of the core Hourglass sizes, which run from a Mini through a wallet on chain and an XS to the Small and a Medium. A 2023 size guide gives the Small as 9 inches wide, 5.5 inches tall and 3.9 inches deep, with a 3.5-inch handle drop and a 21.6-inch strap drop, worn on the shoulder or crossbody.
This entry is the version in bitonal used-effect calfskin, a leather finished to look worn in, in brown. The listing for it describes aged-gold hardware, a nappa lambskin lining, a curvilinear base, one handle, an adjustable and removable crossbody strap, a studded magnet closure and the aged-gold B logo, and gives its size as 9 by 5.9 by 3.9 inches. It is made in Italy and was listed at $3,050 retail before it sold out.
A brown used-effect Small dated 2025 that reached the resale market measured 9 inches along the base, 5.5 inches high and 4 inches wide, with a 3.75-inch handle drop, a 21.25-inch strap drop, a back slip pocket and a brown leather interior. For comparison, Balenciaga's current Small in shiny crocodile-embossed black calfskin, with a back pocket and an inner zipped pocket, was priced at $3,200 in October 2026.
From a quiet launch to a modern classic
The bag sold out fairly quickly on release, and it soon became more than a one-season style, returning season after season in new sizes, finishes and formats, including a tote, a sling and a pochette. The Hourglass Sling of spring 2021, an elongated version in glossy calfskin, retailed for $1,490.
Celebrity carriers helped. Kim Kardashian, Hailey Bieber, Dua Lipa, Rihanna, Miley Cyrus and Julia Fox have all been seen with versions, and Sarah Jessica Parker carried one as Carrie Bradshaw in And Just Like That in 2022. In 2021 Gucci borrowed the shape for its Aria collection, and the Gucci and Balenciaga Hacker Project versions are among the most sought-after on the resale market.
The family kept growing after Demna left. Under Pierpaolo Piccioli, Balenciaga introduced the Hourglass Avenue, shown with the Winter 2026 ClairObscur collection and launched in stores in 2026. It keeps the drawn base but swaps the rigid body for supple box leather that creases and dents with use, adds a second hinged handle and a fold-over flap with a lock closure. In October 2026 the Avenue Small was priced at $2,690 and the Medium at $2,990.
The shape that outlasted its designer
In 2021 one handbag writer argued the Hourglass would go down in handbag history, and by 2023 a resale guide called it arguably the most renowned Balenciaga style in recent history. Its staying power comes from the same thing that made it a departure for Demna: it is recognizable by its silhouette, not a logo.
Its rigid frame and compact interior make it less practical than a soft bag, a trade-off its fans accept. Piccioli, explaining why he reworked it rather than replacing it, called the hourglass one of the most important shapes in Balenciaga's history.
The numbers
- Dimensions (listing)
- 9 x 5.9 x 3.9 in
- Dimensions (size guide)
- 9 in wide, 5.5 in tall, 3.9 in deep; 3.5 in handle drop; 21.6 in strap drop
- Material
- Bitonal used-effect calfskin; nappa lambskin lining
- Hardware
- Aged-gold, B logo, studded magnet closure
- Strap
- Adjustable and removable crossbody strap (21.6 in)
- Made in
- Italy
- Production quantity
- Not published
Timeline
Cristobal Balenciaga is born in Getaria, on the Basque coast.
Balenciaga moves his house to Paris during the Spanish Civil War.
The first hourglass sketch enters the house; a winter 1939 suit shows a lightly cinched waist.
The hourglass line arrives with the tailored suits and peplum jackets of summer 1943.
Cristobal Balenciaga closes his house.
The group now called Kering takes ownership of Balenciaga.
Demna succeeds Alexander Wang as creative director.
The Hourglass bag is introduced with the winter 2019 collection.
Gucci reworks the Hourglass in its Aria collection; the Hourglass Sling arrives for spring.
Carrie Bradshaw carries an Hourglass in And Just Like That.
Demna is named creative director of Gucci.
Pierpaolo Piccioli is appointed at Balenciaga.
The softer Hourglass Avenue, shown with the Winter 2026 collection, launches in stores.
The world in 2019
China's Chang'e 4 becomes the first craft to land on the far side of the Moon.
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashes, leading to the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX worldwide.
Scientists publish the first image of a black hole.
Fire destroys the roof and spire of Notre-Dame in Paris.
Emperor Akihito abdicates, ending Japan's Heisei era.
Months of protests grip Hong Kong.
The first documented human case of COVID-19 occurs.
Price record
This is an asking price, not a sale. It is what a seller wanted on the date shown. Asking prices often sit above what buyers pay, but an ask is not a ceiling: a sale can land on either side of it. It is not a value.
By reference price, Balenciaga Hourglass Small is number 93 of 100 in the handbags entries of the FLOAT 100. 19 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (83 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.
Did you know
- The Hourglass does not stand flat: its bowed base lets it rock on a curve.
- Its shape traces back to a Balenciaga suit jacket sketched in 1939.
- Cristobal Balenciaga built his hourglass hips with internal padding rather than a corset.
- Gucci borrowed the Hourglass shape for its own Aria collection in 2021.
- Balenciaga's revenue rose from about $390 million to nearly $2 billion during Demna's decade.
- The 2026 Hourglass Avenue was designed to dent and crease where a hand holds it.
How this page is made
- The figure
- One reference price, shown with its own kind. FLOAT does not average it with anything or adjust it for time.
- Realized or not
- A realized price is a completed sale. An asking price, an estimate and a price-guide value are not sales, and are labeled as such wherever they appear.
- The story
- Researched from published records and checked fact by fact. Updated Oct 3, 2026.
- Archive
- Oct 5, 2026