L/Uniform’s Jeanne Signoles wants to make your bags functional again: how the French brand pioneered quiet luxury, with backpacks, satchels and wallets that prioritise practical chic – interview

Dec 9 , 2023

Jeanne Signoles is the founder and creative director of L/Uniform, a French brand that makes luxury canvas bags. Photos: Handout

Fashion

L/Uniform is quietly revolutionising luxury bags by going back to the basics, with ambitions of beating out competitors to become the ultimate canvas specialists

With a line of 100 offerings from smaller handbags to toiletry bags, the French label opened first in Paris, then Japan, and now Hong Kong – where it just debuted a pop-up in Lane Crawford

Designer Jeanne Signoles wants to change how you think about shopping. Not just luxury shopping – grocery shopping. Back to school shopping. Holiday shopping.

L’Uniform, a brand created by designer Jeanne Signoles, has a brand new pop-up at Lane Crawford

Whatever kind of shopping you have in mind, Signoles has created a bag for it, from the slimmest of wallets to the most expansive of satchels. Signoles is the founder of L/Uniform, possibly the world’s most understated luxury bag brand.

“A luxury bag without the luxury price,” Signoles says of her canvas-based designs, which were inspired by her own struggles trying to pack up the contents of a small car using a range of dysfunctional, disparate parcels and bags she had with her at the time.

Designer Jeanne Signoles was inspired to start L/Uniform after her own experience of trying to pack without a functional bag

Since when did buying and storing things get so laborious? Signoles says that most consumers probably don’t put practicality first any more when it comes to buying bags. When she started conceptualising L/Uniform, she wanted to make a bag that would “take care of everything for you”.

“Instead of thinking about logos, prints and flashy patterns on the bag’s outside, she continues, “the most important thing to me is what’s inside”.

Canvas bags are the French label L/Uniform’s core offering

Signoles will be the first to admit that, most of the time, practical bags aren’t very nice. But what makes L/Uniform’s designs stand out is Signoles’ conviction in the power and beauty of a simple bag. “For me, a bag is a bag,” she says. “The most important thing is to have a utilitarian bag, to help you have a comfortable day. To give you the opportunity to carry everything you want for your day. It’s not pretentious.”

Signoles’ unwavering faith in her vision is the secret to her brand’s continued success over the years. Even as other brands in a competitive market have changed their tune time and time again, chasing trends and creating new designs at a near-breakneck pace, L/Uniform has stayed true to its original canvas bag, evolving on a slower but more steady and steadfast timeline from Paris, to Japan, and now Hong Kong.

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