Beymen opens Timeless Treasures – The Eternal Journey of the Bag, an exhibition that traces the bag’s transformation over the centuries through the cultural heritage of Anatolia, to visitors in İstanbul on 8 November 2026. Housed at Beymen Tersane – Galleries of Luxury, the exhibition runs until 8 February 2027. The selection brings together 80 bags from 55 of the world’s leading luxury brands; some of these pieces were designed exclusively for Beymen for the exhibition, while others were chosen from the brands’ archives and collections. The exhibition is curated by the writer Laurence Benaïm.
A trunk’s return after 140 years
The exhibition’s most talked-about piece is set to be a Louis Vuitton travel trunk made especially for Sultan Abdülhamid II in 1886. Handcrafted in the house’s Asnières workshop, the trunk is covered in vertical stripes on the outside and divided into drawers within. The piece was brought to İstanbul from the house’s archive in Paris for the exhibition. And so a travel object made for an Ottoman sultan some 140 years ago meets the public in İstanbul once again, this time under museum conditions.
See Beymen's exhibition announcement on Instagram
Nor is this trunk the only historic encounter in the show. The final section of the selection is devoted directly to the bond between Paris and İstanbul, built around a special trunk that symbolises the fashion relationship between the two cities.
The story of the bag in seven sections
The exhibition is made up of seven main sections that treat the bag not merely as an accessory but as an object carrying a culture’s memory:
- Envelopes and pouches: Historic pouch and envelope forms reinterpreted by today’s designers.
- Gardens of paradise: Designs inspired by the motifs of İznik tiles and palace gardens.
- Gold: The splendour of gold in jewel-like bags.
- Trunks: Box and trunk shapes that protect belongings and privacy.
- Nomadic memory: The traditions of weaving, leatherwork and the saddlebag carried from Central Asia to Anatolia.
- Heritage reimagined: How young designers look at this heritage.
- Paris – İstanbul: The closing section, telling the story of the bond between the two capitals.
The structure of the sections also reveals the exhibition’s central ambition: pieces bearing the signatures of international luxury brands are read side by side with Anatolian craft traditions such as tilework, embroidery, weaving and leather. Research was reportedly carried out during the preparation process with contributions from academics and specialists in the field.
Young designers in the same hall as international houses
The exhibition is not limited to long-established fashion houses. Three designs that stood out in the Beymen Young Talents Design Competition were brought to life with Beymen’s production support and are displayed alongside works by major brands in the section titled “Heritage Reimagined”. No statement has been made about whether these bags will go on sale.
What do the curator and executives say?
Curator Laurence Benaïm describes the selection as a journey inspired by the cultural exchange between East and West that has gone on for centuries. Benaïm’s key line about the exhibition reads:
“In this exhibition, we approach the bag not merely as a fashion accessory, but as a timeless expression of identity, memory, culture and craftsmanship.”
Rachid Mohamed Rachid, CEO of Beymen’s owner Mayhoola and Chairman of the Beymen Board, explained that they built the project on the richness of Türkiye’s geography, which unites Asia and Europe. Beymen Group CEO Elif Çapçı, meanwhile, emphasised that they see the bag as more than a functional item: an object that carries identity and memory.
The view from Türkiye
The exhibition also illustrates a trend that has become pronounced in Turkish retail in recent years: department stores are no longer trying to be just places that sell products, but venues that produce cultural programmes. Beymen’s decision to devote its gallery space at Tersane to an exhibition filled with international archive pieces is one of the most ambitious examples of this approach.
From a fashion perspective, the real significance lies in how it makes visible the extent to which Anatolian craft has seeped into the design language of global luxury brands. References ranging from İznik motifs to the saddlebag have long featured in the collections of Turkish designers; this time, the same references can be viewed comparatively, in the same hall, in bags by the world’s biggest fashion houses. Showing young designers in the same section as these houses is also a notable showcase for the new generation preparing to enter the industry.
Since the exhibition stays open for three months, it could also be a stop for fashion lovers visiting İstanbul over the winter. For the season’s other key dates, take a look at our fashion week calendar.
Sources
- Marie Claire Türkiye: Beymen’s bag exhibition focused on Anatolian heritage
- Marketing Türkiye: The sections and details of the Timeless Treasures exhibition
- Gazete Oksijen: Sultan Abdülhamid’s Louis Vuitton trunk in İstanbul
Image: A Louis Vuitton trunk from the 1880s; not the Abdülhamid trunk shown in the exhibition (representative image) — Tim Evanson, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
