How Longchamp’s Le Roseau Bag Embodies the Art of Reinvention

The thought of a family-run, European heritage luxury brand might call to mind Succession-style cutthroat behavior or House of Gucci-level dramatics. But for the Cassegrain family, which presides over Longchamp, longevity isn’t about chasing trends or putting a splashy new designer at the helm each season. “We are not working for next quarter, or for the stock exchange,” creative director Sophie Delafontaine says. “We don’t need to have a full board meeting to make changes. I can call my brother, and in five minutes, we make the decision.”

Agility and risk-taking have defined Longchamp since its founding in 1948, when Delafontaine’s (and her siblings—CEO Jean Cassegrain and managing director Olivier Cassegrain’s) great-great-grandfather opened a tobacco shop in Paris. Those values are perhaps most clearly expressed in one of the house’s most iconic designs: Le Roseau. Introduced in 1993 as a tote with a signature silver bamboo clasp that can be opened and closed with one hand, the bag has since evolved into a modern classic—spotted on the arms of Alexa Chung, Suki Waterhouse, Zoe Saldaña, Sienna Miller, and more. Over the years, it has been reimagined in hundreds of iterations, with Delafontaine and her team returning each season to its core DNA while updating the silhouette, materials, and finishes. Take the spring 2026 version, which arrives in pebble-grain leather or a festive red sequin and folds into the shape of a fortune cookie. “The idea was not to develop the quantity, but more to work on the quality of the product,” Delafontaine says of the ongoing evolution. “We are never bored.”

“The story of the Le Roseau line has been to reinvent itself a few times, but there is always a core design which remains the same,” says Olivier Cassegrain. “You may see different-shape handles, sometimes the body is a bit larger, a bit thinner, a bit less visible, more visible. But the core of the bag remains the same.”

To date, there are mini bags, cross-body bags, bucket bags, totes of all sizes, and clutches in the Roseau style. But back in the ’90s, Olivier explains, the designs were more limited, and dictated by the “cuir pleine fleur,” or full-grain leather, that the brand was using. “In 1993, my father had an opportunity to design some leather bags, which were made with—I don’t want to call it secondary, because it’s not really the case—but with an alternative choice of leather,” he says. The choice ended up being a monumental boon for the label: “This allowed us to give it a finish—the material was very high-quality, resistant, and also allowed us to have richer colors and more interesting structure to the bag.” The move allowed Longchamp to become more “fashion-oriented, by choosing the right color of the season,” Olivier adds. (Indeed, there are Le Roseau bags in butter yellow, muted neutrals, and even a take on Brat green.) “We could introduce a shiny finish, a matte finish, a pebbled finish—but it was still a 100 percent leather bag.”

Longchamp is arguably best known as a brand for a bag with just a hint of leather on it: Le Pliage. The nylon tote is iconic in its ubiquity, worn by celebrities, fashion editors, travelers, and stylish folk around the world for decades. Like Le Roseau, the style is very much essential to the brand. “These pillars give us a lot of freedom to explore, to create, to try, to take risks,” she says “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t work. But we move.”