Goyard Anjou GM

The little brother of a beach bag

The Anjou exists because of the Saint Louis. Goyard says its Saint Louis tote was first designed as a beach bag: an unlined, reversible sack of coated canvas that could carry wet things home. It became the house's best-known bag, but owners grumbled about its weak points. One early Anjou owner wrote that the Saint Louis tends to wear at the corners and that its handles can crack if overloaded, and a reader told a handbag site that Goyard staff in Paris had warned her the Saint Louis was meant for the beach, not as an everyday purse.

In July 2015 Goyard announced a reversible bag called the Anjou. It kept the Saint Louis silhouette but added a full calfskin face, so the tote could be worn with the leather out or flipped to show the Goyardine chevrons. It launched in two sizes, PM and GM, and in the United States it was first sold only at the New York flagship. An owner who bought one in 2016 found it had leather reinforcement along the sides and bottom, slightly thicker handles than the Saint Louis, and a lining soft enough to compare with lambskin.

The name is a family joke in the house's own catalog. The Saint Louis is named for King Louis IX of France, known as Saint Louis. Goyard says the Anjou refers to his brother Charles of Anjou: as the Duke of Anjou was Saint Louis's brother, so the Anjou is the little brother of the Saint Louis bag. (Goyard calls him a duke; histories of the period record that Charles was created count of Anjou.)

A trunk maker older than its rivals

Goyard traces itself to Maison Martin, a Paris box-making, trunk-making and packing business founded by Pierre-Francois Martin in 1792. In 1834 the shop moved to rue Saint-Honore, where Goyard's flagship still stands at number 233. Martin passed the business to Louis-Henri Morel, who in 1845 hired a 17-year-old apprentice named Francois Goyard. When Morel died suddenly in 1852, Goyard took over and renamed the house, a year before Louis Vuitton opened its own business.

Francois's son Edmond, who ran the company from April 1, 1885, created its first advertisements, entered world expositions, opened branches in Monte-Carlo, Biarritz and Bordeaux, and in 1892 created the Goyardine canvas. Its dotted pattern recalls the family's ancestors, log drivers from Clamecy in Burgundy who floated firewood to Paris, and its stacked chevrons form a Y, the central letter of the family name. Goyard says the canvas derives from Poutangris, a coated linen and cotton cloth the log drivers used for their working smocks.

The family ran the house until 1998, when Jean-Michel Signoles, a collector who had bought his first vintage Goyard trunk in a Paris antique shop in 1974, purchased it. Goyard says Goyardine production had stopped after World War II and resumed only under Signoles, who opened new workshops in France and boutiques across Europe, the Americas and Asia, and added a range of colors to the historic black. The Anjou belongs to that revival: a 21st-century bag built on a 19th-century canvas.

Luxury without a megaphone

The Anjou arrived at the height of Goyard's reputation as fashion's quietest brand. A 2014 profile described a house with no advertising, no e-commerce and very few stockists, and a press office whose official policy was not to speak to the press; it suggested reporters ask Karl Lagerfeld instead. A New York department store executive told the same reporter that the brand had become 'a fashion must' over the previous 10 to 15 years, and a resale executive called a Goyard 'an insider's bag' that 'doesn't scream luxury.'

That reticence shaped how the Anjou was sold. A 2022 account counted 35 Goyard stores worldwide, six of them in the United States, and said Goyard still sold nothing online at the time; the house never staged fashion shows or splashy launches. Today the Anjou GM has its own page on Goyard's U.S. website.

How to read an Anjou GM

Goyard describes the current Anjou GM as a leather bag lined with Goyardine and fully reversible. It measures 38.5 cm long, 18.5 cm wide and 33 cm high, with handles that rise 19 cm, and weighs 0.58 kg, against 390 g for the all-canvas Saint Louis GM. It comes with a removable inside pocket and a leather Croc Universel, a hook-style fastener for added security, and it is made in France. Black with tan trim is one of the standard colorways.

Catalog measurements vary with how a soft tote is laid flat. A customized 2016 Anjou GM offered at auction in Hong Kong in 2021 was listed at 38 x 33 x 19 cm, while a black and tan Anjou GM offered on the U.S. resale market in 2026 was listed at 40 cm high, 34 cm wide and 20 cm deep.

The house's hand-painted marquage is part of the bag's appeal. Goyard paints initials, stripes and other motifs onto Goyardine by hand, and in 2016 a buyer of an Anjou GM in Chicago reported waiting six weeks while the bag went to San Francisco for painting. Colors other than black have cost more: at launch the Anjou GM was $2,450 in black or black with tan and $3,180 in the house's other colors, a premium one owner put at about 30 percent.

Prices and passages

The Anjou has generally cost more than the Saint Louis it was built on. One early owner wrote that the Anjou cost almost double a Saint Louis; a late-2016 guide listed the Saint Louis GM at $1,375 in classic colors. By early 2025 one price guide reported that Goyard had raised U.S. prices for the Anjou while leaving the Saint Louis unchanged, and that the same totes cost noticeably less in Europe.

On the secondary market, a recent guide put Anjou and Artois totes at roughly $3,000 to $5,500, above the Saint Louis. In October 2026 a black and tan Anjou GM was offered on the U.S. resale market at $4,000.

One of the more unusual Anjou GMs to change hands came from the collection of the Hong Kong actor Shawn Yue: a customized black Anjou GM painted with the print of his streetwear label, sold in September 2021 together with a matching customized Saint Louis GM XXL as a single lot for HK$22,500, with proceeds going to Make-A-Wish Hong Kong.

Two bags in one

The Anjou did not replace the Saint Louis; it widened the family. Goyard later added a zip-top tote, the Artois, introduced in 2018 and not reversible, and the Anjou range grew to include a Mini. A 2026 guide summed up the trio this way: the Saint Louis is the lightest, the Anjou adds a leather reverse and two ways to wear it, and the Artois is the most structured.

Its appeal is the same one the house has sold for 170 years: a recognizable canvas that does not shout. With the leather side out, an Anjou GM can pass for a plain calfskin tote; turned around, it is unmistakably Goyard.

The numbers

Dimensions

38.5 cm long x 18.5 cm wide x 33 cm high (maker's figures)

Handle height

19 cm

Weight

0.58 kg

Material

Calfskin leather and Goyardine canvas (coated linen and cotton), reversible

Hardware and closure

Open top with a leather Croc Universel fastener; removable inside pouch

Sizes in the range

Launched in PM and GM; later also Mini and MM

Production quantity

Not published

Timeline

1. 1792

   Pierre-Francois Martin founds Maison Martin, the box, trunk and packing business Goyard descends from.

2. 1834

   The shop moves to rue Saint-Honore, later numbered 233, where the flagship still stands.

3. 1845

   Louis-Henri Morel hires 17-year-old Francois Goyard as an apprentice.

4. 1853

   After Morel's death, Francois Goyard takes over and renames the house Maison Goyard.

5. Apr 1, 1885

   Edmond Goyard becomes head of the house.

6. 1892

   Edmond Goyard creates the Goyardine chevron canvas.

7. 1974

   Jean-Michel Signoles buys his first vintage Goyard trunk in a Paris antique shop.

8. 1998

   Signoles buys Goyard and revives Goyardine production.

9. Jul 2015

   Goyard announces the reversible Anjou tote in PM and GM sizes.

10. Dec 1, 2015

    The Anjou GM is reported on sale in the U.S. at $2,450 in black, initially only at the New York flagship.

11. 2016

    A Chicago buyer reports a six-week wait for hand-painting on an Anjou GM.

12. 2018

    Goyard introduces the Artois, a structured zip-top tote alongside the Saint Louis and Anjou.

13. Sep 28, 2021

    A customized Anjou GM from Shawn Yue's collection sells in Hong Kong in a two-bag charity lot.

14. Jan 31, 2025

    A price guide reports U.S. price increases for the Anjou range.

15. Oct 2026

    A black and tan Anjou GM is offered on the U.S. resale market at $4,000.

The world in 1270

• 1270

  King Louis IX, Saint Louis, dies after reigning since 1226; he remains the only French king canonized as a saint.

• 1854

  Louis Vuitton opens in Paris, at the address Maison Martin had left two decades earlier.

• 1936

  Robert Goyard, with Charles Ritz and Louis Boucheron, sets up the Comite Vendome to represent Paris luxury houses.

• 2007

  Kanye West mentions his Goyard trunks in the song 'The Glory.'

• 2010

  Goyard publishes an art book printed in just 233 copies.

• 2014

  Signs for a Goyard store go up on Madison Avenue in New York before the house confirms anything.

• Dec 12, 2015

  The UN climate conference at Le Bourget, near Paris, that produced the Paris Agreement concludes, months after the Anjou's announcement.

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, Goyard Anjou GM is number 47 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 (72 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Goyard says the Anjou is named for Saint Louis's brother because it is the 'little brother' of the Saint Louis tote.
• When it launched in the U.S., the Anjou was sold only at Goyard's New York flagship.
• The Goyardine chevrons stack into a Y, the middle letter of the Goyard name.
• Goyard's canvas was inspired by the working smocks and log drives of the founder's ancestors in Burgundy.
• One early owner said flipping her Anjou inside out took about 30 seconds and that staff warned against yanking the handles to do it.
• Goyard says it stopped making its Goyardine canvas after World War II and restarted only after 1998.
• When a reporter asked Goyard for an interview in 2014, the house suggested asking Karl Lagerfeld instead.