This March, I was very honored to be invited by Gucci to create a series of watercolor paintings, celebrating their classic Bamboo handbags. The Art Director hopes the illustrations could tell a story feeling timeless and elegant. Then I came up with four paintings working together to show a handbag's journey across generations, countries and centuries. 

A girl entered her grandmother’s rooftop storage, and discovered a beautifully crafted Gucci Bamboo handbag. This bag belongs to her grandmother. 

When grandmother was young, she was an artist, traveling a lot with watercolor and sketchbooks in the handbag. She recorded various lives and people she met along the way with her brush. This Gucci Bamboo was always full of exciting paintings and memories.

The girl's grandmother then decided to settle down in Italy after spend years on traveling and painting. The handbag has still been her favorite companion wherever she went, party, market, exhibition, theater, bookstore... An object became an old friend, a witness of her life. 

Her grandmother passed this wonderful handbag to her granddaughter, the girl. And she took it with her all the time just like her grandmother. One day, she got chance to visit China, the first trip to her hometown. She promised her grandmother to take a lot of photos there and bring back to Italy.

Early concept and sketch

Painting process

media: opaque watercolor, pencil, acrylic gouache

Instagram:@0717vikki

Red小红书/Weibo: @张文绮Vikki Zhang

Website: www.vikkizhang.com

Email: vikkizhangart@gmail.com