Chanel 19 Large Flap

The last Lagerfeld bag

Karl Lagerfeld died on February 19, 2019, at the American Hospital of Paris in Neuilly-sur-Seine, at 85. He had designed for Chanel since 1983. On March 5, 2019, the house showed his final collection, Fall/Winter 2019, and the Chanel 19 made its runway debut there. It was the last major handbag created under his direction.

He did not design it alone. The bag is credited to Lagerfeld together with Virginie Viard, his longtime studio director, who was named to succeed him after his death. That shared authorship is a large part of why collectors treat the 19 as a hinge between two eras of the house.

Chanel's newest bag reached boutiques in the fall. A handbag site announced it as in stores on October 15, 2019, and noted that its introductory post about the bag had been one of its most viewed of the year.

Lagerfeld, Viard and the 2.55

Viard joined Chanel in 1987 in embroidery, followed Lagerfeld to Chloé, and returned with him to Chanel in 1997 as director of the fashion design studio. From 2000 she ran Chanel's creation studio. In the months before his death Chanel had begun sending her out to take bows beside him, and in January 2019 she appeared alone at the end of the haute couture shows, with the house explaining that Lagerfeld was tired.

The bag they made looks backward on purpose. It pays tribute to the 2.55, the shoulder bag Gabrielle Chanel presented in February 1955 and named for that date, and to the Classic Flap, Lagerfeld's own 1983 tribute to the 2.55. Like the 2.55, the 19 is usually said to be named for the year of its birth.

Chanel tells it a little differently. The house describes the name as referring to a symbolic number for Chanel rather than tying it to a calendar year, so the two explanations circulate side by side.

Viard went on to lead the house's collections from 2019 to 2024. She left Chanel in June 2024, and in December 2024 Matthieu Blazy was appointed artistic director, so the 19 now outlives the partnership that created it.

A snowy farewell

The show where the bag first appeared was staged as a mountain village under snow, with models gathering on the steps of a faux alpine lodge. It opened with a minute's silence and then Lagerfeld's own recorded voice, taken from a recent Chanel podcast, ending in English with his pleasure at surprising an audience: it is like walking in a painting.

Two months later, on May 3, 2019, Viard showed her first solo collection, Cruise 2020, at the Grand Palais. The 19 thus arrived on the cusp: designed in one regime and sold in the next. A 2022 retrospective observed that the Boy bag had been the younger Chanel customer's bag of choice until 2019, when the 19 arrived.

How to read a large 19 in black lambskin

The 19 is softer and slouchier than the 2.55 or the Classic Flap. Its signatures are an exaggerated diamond quilting, a chunky chain top handle, an XL double C turn-lock whose metal Cs are laced with leather matching the body, and a long strap that blends three finishes, gold-tone, silver-tone and ruthenium, in a gradient. The first version was made in smooth goatskin; lambskin, tweed, jersey, denim, printed silk, shearling and sequins followed.

At launch Chanel offered a waist bag, a wallet on chain, the flap bag, the large flap bag and a maxi. Guides give the large as about 11.7 to 12 inches wide, 7.8 to 8 inches high and 3.5 to 3.9 inches deep, with a handle drop of about 4 inches and a strap drop of about 17 inches. Chanel's current listing for the black shiny lambskin version carries reference AS1161-B04852-94305.

Naming is the main confusion. Chanel calls the smaller flap simply the CHANEL 19 Handbag and this size the Large, but resellers often call the regular flap a medium, and one account says the medium is often referred to as the large. A black lambskin bag offered in 2026 as a medium measured 12 inches wide, the large's dimensions. Measure the width before trusting a size name: about 10 inches for the regular flap, about 12 for the large and about 13.5 to 14 for the maxi.

Interiors vary: resale examples of the black lambskin large show burgundy or red fabric linings, and some examples have a silver-tone rather than gold-tone chain handle.

Retail climb and resale reality

In April 2020 the large flap cost $5,100 in goatskin or lambskin, $4,800 in jersey, $4,600 in tweed and $4,400 in cotton canvas. By 2026 Chanel's US site listed the large in black shiny lambskin at $7,900 and the regular-size 19 at $7,200.

In 2021 one reseller reported that 19 bags were selling at up to 100 to 130 percent of retail, with most of its examples selling within 30 days. The asks seen in 2026 sit well below current retail. On October 1, 2026, a US reseller listed three black lambskin large 19 bags at $3,595 (2019, very good), $3,795 and $4,250 (2021), and another listing asked $5,000 for a black lambskin bag dated 2020 in its title and 2021 in its details, described as a medium but measuring 12 inches wide.

These are asking prices, not sales. No auction result for a black lambskin large 19 was found in the sources used for this page.

The numbers

Dimensions

About 11.7-12 in wide x 7.8-8 in high x 3.5-3.9 in deep; handle drop about 4 in; strap drop about 17 in

Material

Black lambskin with oversized diamond quilting; the original release was in goatskin

Hardware

Chain strap mixing gold-tone, silver-tone and ruthenium finishes; chain top handle; XL leather-laced double C turn-lock

Chanel reference

AS1161-B04852-94305 (black shiny lambskin, 2026 US listing)

Production quantity

Not published by Chanel

Timeline

1. Feb 1955

   Gabrielle Chanel presents the quilted shoulder bag later called the 2.55, the model the 19 pays tribute to.

2. 1983

   Karl Lagerfeld joins Chanel and creates the Classic Flap as his own tribute to the 2.55.

3. 1987

   Virginie Viard joins Chanel, working in embroidery.

4. 1997

   Viard returns to Chanel with Lagerfeld from Chloé as director of the fashion design studio.

5. 2019

   One of the black lambskin large bags offered in 2026 is dated to this year.

6. Jan 2019

   Viard appears alone at the end of Chanel's haute couture shows; the house says Lagerfeld is tired.

7. Feb 19, 2019

   Lagerfeld dies at 85; Chanel names Viard his successor.

8. Mar 5, 2019

   The Chanel 19 debuts on the runway of Lagerfeld's final collection, Fall/Winter 2019, in Paris.

9. Oct 15, 2019

   The 19 is reported in boutiques in four sizes, the large flap at $5,100.

10. Apr 2020

    A guide lists five sizes, from waist bag and wallet on chain to the maxi, with the large at $5,100 in leather.

11. Jul 2021

    A reseller reports 19 bags selling at 100 to 130 percent of retail, most within 30 days.

12. Jun 2024

    Viard leaves Chanel.

13. Dec 2024

    Matthieu Blazy is appointed artistic director of Chanel.

14. Oct 1, 2026

    Chanel's US price for the large in black shiny lambskin stands at $7,900; black lambskin examples are offered on resale at $3,595 to $5,000.

The world in 2017

• 2017

  Chanel introduces the Gabrielle, described as its first major bag launch since the Boy of 2011.

• 2019

  Lagerfeld's death also ends his tenure at Fendi, which began in 1965, and at his own label, founded in 1984.

• Feb 19, 2019

  Karl Lagerfeld dies at the American Hospital of Paris after complications of prostate cancer.

• Mar 5, 2019

  Chanel's Fall/Winter 2019 show, staged as a snow-covered alpine village, opens with a minute's silence for Lagerfeld.

• May 3, 2019

  Virginie Viard shows her first solo Chanel collection, Cruise 2020, at the Grand Palais.

• 2023

  Chanel reports revenue of US$19.7 billion.

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, Chanel 19 Large Flap is number 39 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 (35 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• The 19 walked the runway on March 5, 2019, two weeks after Karl Lagerfeld's death, in a show that opened with a minute's silence and his recorded voice.
• Its strap is a gradient of three metals, gold-tone, silver-tone and ruthenium, in one chain.
• Most guides say 19 is the year of its birth, but Chanel describes it as a symbolic number for the house.
• The very first 19 bags were made in smooth goatskin, not lambskin.
• Chanel's US price for the large in leather went from $5,100 at launch in 2019 to $7,900 in 2026.
• Resellers' size names do not match Chanel's: a bag sold as a 'medium' 19 can be the house's Large.