Before it was 'Nova', Burberrys check was luggage.
'The Burberry Look' · Burberrys check luggage set in the boot · Boston bags, cases, blanket · 1980s
01 · The wrap
Burberrys check started under the coat.
Around 1920 the check was a lining. Nobody was meant to see it. It lived inside the trench, a private stripe of beige, black, white and red.
By the 1960s customers were asking for the check itself. Then, in 1967, a buyer at the Paris store dressed a window by wrapping luggage in it and cutting an umbrella cover. Burberry dates the check accessory to that display.
So the check did not begin on a handbag. It began on a suitcase — and travel bags like ours are its most direct descendants.
02 · The look
03 · The face
04 · The drive
05 · The S
Burberrys is a clue. Not a decade.
Our tab reads 'Burberrys' beneath the gold Equestrian Knight. The house dropped the S in 1999 — so the mark places this bag before that, nothing tighter. Sellers who turn 'Burberrys' into '1980s' are guessing.
The other guess is the name. Resale calls every beige check 'Nova Check'. The earliest Burberry document we found using NOVA for a handbag range is from 2009 — and by 2012 the house was discontinuing it. Our bag predates the word.
What you can trust: woven textile, not coated PVC. Black leather handles, black piping, silver-tone rings. A soft travel bag built to be thrown in a boot.
06 · The loud years
