Chanel Pre Fall 2019 Egypt Street Spirit Gold Graffiti Backpack

Chanel Pre-Fall 2019 Egypt Street Spirit Gold Graffiti Backpack

One of the most visually extraordinary and culturally loaded pieces from Karl Lagerfeld's final creative period at Chanel — the Egypt Street Spirit Gold Graffiti Backpack from the Pre-Fall 2019 collection is a wearable artwork that merges ancient Egyptian iconography with the street art aesthetic that Lagerfeld had been exploring since the landmark SS14 Artclass show. As one of the last major collections fully realised under his creative direction before his passing in February 2019, pieces from this collection carry a particular significance that continues to appreciate among collectors of both Chanel and fashion history.

The Egypt Street Spirit Collection — Context & Significance

The Chanel Pre-Fall 2019 presentation was staged in the Grand Palais transformed into an ancient Egyptian temple — one of the most ambitious set designs in Chanel's already extraordinary show history. Lagerfeld drew from the visual language of Egyptology — hieroglyphs, pyramid forms, pharaonic motifs, the Eye of Horus — and recontextualised them through the lens of street art and graffiti culture, producing a collection that was simultaneously historically referential and immediately contemporary. The Egypt Street Spirit print applied to this backpack is the collection's most direct expression of that vision: ancient symbols spray-painted over gold canvas in the vivid, multi-colour palette of urban art.

The Print — Egypt Street Spirit in Detail

The Egypt Street Spirit print covers every surface of the backpack in a dense, layered composition drawn directly from ancient Egyptian visual culture — pyramids, pharaonic figures, hieroglyphic text, and geometric patterns rendered in a multicolour graffiti style over a gold denim canvas base. The "29 Rue Cambon" and "Chanel" text — stencilled in the same graffiti style across the lower front panel — ties the ancient visual vocabulary directly to the house's present identity, exactly as Lagerfeld intended. The canvas trim features a vivid geometric border in blue, red, and yellow that references Egyptian decorative patterns while reading as entirely contemporary.

Construction & Details

The backpack features a zip-closure main compartment, a front zip pocket with gold-tone CC charm, and the structured yet lightweight canvas construction that characterises Chanel's collector-focused runway accessories. The gold-tone hardware throughout — including the zipper pulls and CC pendant — complements the warm gold canvas base without competing with the vivid print.

Karl Lagerfeld's Final Chapter

Lagerfeld passed away in February 2019, making Pre-Fall 2019 one of the last collections he fully brought to completion. For collectors of his work at Chanel specifically, pieces from this period carry an additional layer of significance — both as expressions of his continued creative ambition at the very end of his tenure, and as fixed points in fashion history that will not be revisited or reissued.

• Model: Graffiti Backpack
• Collection: Pre-Fall 2019 — Egypt Street Spirit
• Print: Egypt Street Spirit — ancient Egyptian motifs in multicolour graffiti
• Canvas: Gold denim canvas with geometric border trim
• Hardware: Gold-tone — zipper pulls & CC pendant
• Closure: Zip main compartment + front zip pocket
• Designer: Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel (final collections)
• Origin: Chanel Paris