What Hervé Chapelier is known for

Paris bag house founded 1976 by Hervé Chapelier, who began making artisanal duffle-style bags in Los Angeles and Saint-Tropez before settling in Paris. The 1985 boat-shaped bicolor nylon cabas became the brand's signature, followed by the 925 travel tote in the 1990s.

Hervé Chapelier founded his eponymous company in Paris in 1976. After finishing his studies in France, he moved to Los Angeles, where he began making handbags by hand to support himself, then relocated again to Saint-Tropez, where he sold his first bags, a reworking of the traditional duffle bag rendered in bright colors including orange, red, pink, yellow and purple, with handles inspired by automotive design details.

The brand expanded into backpacks at the start of the 1980s, which became popular among French secondary-school students, and in 1985 Chapelier introduced the item that would define the house: a boat-shaped, bicolor nylon tote bag known as the cabas. The tote's shape, a rounded bottom rising to a narrower opening in contrasting colored panels, was quickly adopted first by teenage girls and students and later became a recognizable staple among a wider adult clientele across Paris.

In the 1990s the company added the '925', a larger nylon travel tote that also became a long-running catalog staple. The nylon bags remain manufactured to the company's own specifications, and the brand has continued selling the two-tone nylon cabas in a range of sizes and colorways as its core product line for close to four decades, alongside pebbled-canvas leather goods added to the collection over time.