Gucci Bamboo 1947 Small

A handle born of shortage

Gucci began as a luggage shop. Guccio Gucci, born in Florence in 1881, settled in London in 1897 and worked as a bellhop at the Savoy Hotel, carrying the trunks of rich travelers. He later worked for the luxury rail company Compagnie des Wagons-Lits and for the Florentine luggage maker Franzi. In 1921 he opened his own shop on Via della Vigna Nuova in Florence, selling imported luggage and goods made by local craftsmen.

Shortages shaped the house early. After Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, the League of Nations imposed a trade embargo. Leather became scarce, and Gucci turned to raffia, wicker, wood, linen and jute. Gucci launched its handbags in 1937. After the Second World War the problem came back: in postwar Italy, traditional raw materials were again hard to get.

Gucci's own account says that in 1947 Guccio Gucci and a group of Florentine artisans decided to make a bag handle out of lightweight, durable bamboo. Leather and metal were restricted, but bamboo could still be imported from Japan. At first the bag was known only by its product number, 0633. One account traces the idea to walking sticks collected by Guccio's son. The house's own telling credits Guccio and his artisans.

Bent over a flame

Every handle starts as a straight piece of cane. Gucci says its artisans pick the most unblemished bamboo, soften it and work it over an open flame until it bends. They then coat it in several layers of lacquer and bake it to a shiny golden-brown finish. Bamboo is a natural material, so Gucci says no two handles are ever the same.

Two magazine histories describe the flame-bending method as patented, and Gucci still makes its bamboo handles this way by hand. In 2021 the house reissued its bamboo-handled Diana tote with a removable elastic band. Vogue explained that the band referenced the elastic bands Gucci uses to help its bamboo hold its shape.

The leather body recalls a horse saddle, a nod to the equestrian themes that run through Gucci's history. One recent account puts the work behind a single bag at 428 steps and 37 pieces of leather. Inside are a bellowed body that opens wider than it looks and a zip pocket, and the flap closes with a bamboo turn-lock.

From Pompeii to Blow-Up

Film made the bag famous. Ingrid Bergman, wearing leather gloves, carried one in the ruins of Pompeii in Roberto Rossellini's Viaggio in Italia, with a matching bamboo-handled umbrella. Sources differ on the date. One says Bergman was carrying the bag by 1953, when the film was being made; another gives 1954, the year of the film.

It also appeared in two Michelangelo Antonioni films. Eleonora Rossi Drago carried it in Le Amiche (1955), and eleven years later Vanessa Redgrave, in a miniskirt, carried one in Blow-Up. Elizabeth Taylor and Grace Kelly were fans. Then-Princess Elizabeth and Eleanor Roosevelt are reported to have visited the Florence shop in those years.

Guccio Gucci died in 1953, the same year Gucci opened its first American store, on Fifth Avenue at 58th Street in New York. Sources disagree on how the two dates relate. One gives his death as January 2, 1953, in Milan, and the store opening as November 1953. Another says he died 15 days after the New York store opened.

Revivals and a new name

The design never fully left the house. Dawn Mello was hired as executive vice president and chief designer in November 1989. She cut the number of stores and products, and she revived the Bamboo bag and the Gucci loafer. Frida Giannini, creative director from 2006, developed the New Bamboo. It appeared in her Spring 2010 collection, slightly larger, with a detachable strap and tassels.

In the 1990s a roomier bamboo-handled tote went almost everywhere with Princess Diana. Hers was in putty-colored suede. Alessandro Michele reissued it as the Gucci Diana on July 1, 2021, which would have been her 60th birthday.

Michele then gave the original its current name. In January 2022 Gucci presented the Gucci Bamboo 1947 in its Gucci Beloved lines, in a range of colors, with interchangeable leather and Web straps. Instead of a conventional campaign, the house asked nine photographers and artists to interpret the bag. Harry Styles carried a Bamboo at the Brit Awards in 2021, and Sabato De Sarno later made the bag in his deep oxblood Rosso Ancora with an embossed logo.

In August 2024 Gucci marked 60 years in Japan, the country its bamboo once came from, with an exhibition at its Ginza gallery in Tokyo called Bamboo 1947: Then and Now. It traced the bag through more than 400 archival and contemporary versions. These included 60 vintage Bamboo bags from 1980 to 1990, reinterpreted by Japanese artists such as the photographer Daido Moriyama. The show ran until September 23, 2024.

How to read a small Bamboo 1947

Gucci lists the small at 8.3 inches wide, 6 inches high and 2.75 inches deep. It weighs about 2 pounds, and the bamboo handle has a 4.3-inch drop. The black leather version listed in October 2026 has black bamboo hardware, a leather lining and a bamboo closure. Inside are one zip pocket and one open pocket holding a mirror in its own leather holder. It comes with two interchangeable straps, one in black leather and one in the house's green and red Web stripe. It is made in Italy.

The same small shape comes in other finishes. In October 2026 Gucci's US site showed it in two black leather versions, a cuir (tan) leather and a white leather, all under style number 675797, along with mini and medium sizes. A used small black example offered for resale that month was described as calfskin with gold-colored hardware, about 22 by 15 by 6.5 cm. The listing graded it good, with light rubbing at the corners and a small tear on the shoulder strap.

The handle works like a fingerprint. Its nodes and grain are natural, so they differ from bag to bag, and the lacquered surface should have the golden-brown finish Gucci describes. The turn-lock on the flap is bamboo too.

Retail and resale

In October 2026 Gucci's US boutique priced the small Bamboo 1947 in black leather at $4,900. The mini was listed at $3,980. A British magazine's shopping guide listed the black leather small at £3,810 in the UK.

That same month a seller in France offered a used small black bag for $1,290, about a quarter of the boutique price for a new one. That is an asking price, not a sale. No source gives a production count for the bag.

The numbers

Dimensions (Gucci, small)

8.3" W x 6" H x 2.75" D; about 2 lb

Dimensions (resale listing)

22 x 15 x 6.5 cm

Material

Black leather body, leather lining

Hardware

Black bamboo hardware on Gucci's current black version; one resale example is described with gold-colored hardware

Handle

Flame-curved, lacquered bamboo, 4.3" drop

Straps

Black leather (drop 19.6"-22.8") and green and red Web (drop 16.1"-25.2")

Closure

Bamboo turn-lock

Style number

675797

Production quantity

Not stated by any source

Timeline

1. 1897

   Guccio Gucci settles in London and works as a bellhop at the Savoy Hotel.

2. 1921

   Guccio Gucci opens his shop on Via della Vigna Nuova in Florence.

3. 1935

   A League of Nations embargo on Italy makes leather scarce, and Gucci turns to raffia, wicker, wood, linen and jute.

4. 1937

   Gucci launches its handbags.

5. 1947

   Gucci introduces a saddle-shaped bag with a flame-curved bamboo handle, product number 0633.

6. 1953

   Guccio Gucci dies. In November Gucci opens its first US store, on Fifth Avenue in New York.

7. 1954

   Ingrid Bergman carries a Bamboo bag in Rossellini's Viaggio in Italia (one source dates it 1953).

8. 1955

   The bag appears with Eleonora Rossi Drago in Antonioni's Le Amiche.

9. 1966

   Vanessa Redgrave carries a Bamboo bag in Antonioni's Blow-Up.

10. Nov 1989

    Dawn Mello joins Gucci as chief designer and goes on to revive the Bamboo bag.

11. 2010

    Frida Giannini's Spring 2010 collection introduces the New Bamboo.

12. Jul 1, 2021

    Gucci reissues Princess Diana's bamboo-handled tote as the Gucci Diana.

13. Jan 2022

    Gucci presents the Bamboo 1947 in its Gucci Beloved lines, with work by nine international creators.

14. Aug 2024

    Bamboo 1947: Then and Now opens at Gucci's Ginza gallery in Tokyo with more than 400 versions. It runs until September 23.

15. Oct 1, 2026

    Gucci's US site lists the small in black leather at $4,900.

The world in 1947

• Feb 10, 1947

  Peace treaties between the Allies and Italy are signed in Paris, and Italy cedes most of Istria to Yugoslavia.

• Feb 21, 1947

  Edwin Land demonstrates the first Polaroid instant camera in New York.

• Apr 15, 1947

  Jackie Robinson plays for the Brooklyn Dodgers, breaking Major League Baseball's color line.

• May 31, 1947

  Alcide De Gasperi forms Italy's first postwar government without the Communist Party.

• Jun 5, 1947

  George Marshall outlines the Marshall Plan for rebuilding Europe in a speech at Harvard.

• Aug 15, 1947

  India gains independence from Britain, a day after Pakistan.

• Oct 14, 1947

  Chuck Yeager flies the Bell X-1 faster than the speed of sound.

• Dec 22, 1947

  Italy's Constituent Assembly approves the new Constitution of Italy.

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, Gucci Bamboo 1947 Small is number 72 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 (60 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Before it had a name, the Bamboo bag was known only by its product number, 0633.
• Gucci's bamboo came from Japan, and in 2024 the house marked 60 years in Japan with an exhibition about the bag.
• Each handle is bent by hand over an open flame, lacquered in several layers and baked. Gucci says no two are the same.
• One account counts 428 steps and 37 pieces of leather in a single Bamboo 1947.
• Michelangelo Antonioni put the bag in two films eleven years apart: Le Amiche in 1955 and Blow-Up in 1966.
• The elastic strap on the 2021 Gucci Diana tote is a nod to the elastic bands Gucci uses to help bamboo handles keep their shape.
• For the 2022 relaunch, the artist Masayoshi Matsumoto rebuilt the bag entirely out of balloons.