The origins of the Maison

Longchamp’s story began in 1948 when Jean Cassegrain, the father of today's President, began to craft luxury leather smoking pipes. After several successful years of offering the finest smoke products in France, the company began to create small leather goods and eventually expanded the collection to include women’s handbags, luggage, ready-to-wear, shoes, and men’s leather collections. What began as a small smoke shop, known for its expertise and excellent craftsmanship, soon expanded to a major luxury brand.

In 1948, Jean Cassegrain unveiled his unique vision of French elegance and reinvented the codes of modern luxury with the Longchamp brand. Once a leather-covered pipe manufacturer, Longchamp broadened its expertise to the manufacture of travel accessories, handbags, ready-to-wear, and shoes, which can now be found all over the world.

If you'd like to learn more about the history of Longchamp, click here.

The emblematic horse logo is a symbol of the company’s inception. There is a famous horse racetrack in Paris called Longchamp or "long field”.

Just next door was an old mill that Monsieur Cassegrain - which means "miller" in French - used to pass in front of every day.

The company soon found its name: it being only a short trot from the miller and onto the racetrack, the way was fore trodden!