Pencil Cat Bag
A slim leather box closed by the house clasp and crowned with a sculptural cat handle — Lanvin's most personal bag.
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Story & heritage
The Pencil Cat is the bag that draws most directly on Lanvin's own history. Its slim, rectangular box shape was inspired by the pencil and brush boxes Jeanne Lanvin kept on her desk — a glimpse of the founder's creative intimacy. Crowning it is a sculptural cat-shaped jewel handle, modelled on a feline andiron that belonged to Jeanne Lanvin and was designed by the French decorator Armand-Albert Rateau, her collaborator on Lanvin Décoration in the 1920s.
Closed by the house clasp set with the Lanvin mother-and-daughter logo — the emblem drawn by Paul Iribe from a photograph of Jeanne and her daughter Marguerite at a 1907 costume ball — the Pencil Cat folds the Maison's founding story into a single object.
Materials & craft
The Pencil Cat is built as a structured leather box with a suede-lined interior and a single flat pocket. The defining element is the cast-metal cat handle — a stretching, spotted feline finished in gunmetal or gilded gold — that arches across the top. The front flap fastens with the gold-and-gunmetal Lanvin clasp, its medallion engraved with the mother-and-daughter logo. A detachable leather strap converts the box for shoulder carry.
How to choose & style
The Pencil Cat is a dressed silhouette — its rigid box body and jewel handle lean evening, carried in the hand by the cat. Black leather with the gunmetal handle is the most versatile; the gilded versions read more ornamental. Because the bag is the statement, it sits best against quiet tailoring, the handle doing the work the way a piece of jewellery would.
