The codes 8 September 2022

The Agnès b. logo

It's a first name, followed by an enigmatic, handwritten « b. ». Its creator looks back at the story of this iconic logo.

"First the name, « agnès b. ». I was working as a stylist for ELLE magazine in the early 1970s. One day, they called me and asked me how I wanted my work to be credited. I answered "agnès b. like in the news". That stuck. When I started the brand, I wrote the name by hand with a felt-tip pen, like this, and we put it on the labels. It became our logo, and it hasn't changed since the 1970s.

I've always written a lot by hand, and notably letters that are a bit serious, to people who are close to me or sometimes to people who I don't know personally, but whom I like. I wrote my film (My name is Hmmm..., released in 2014) by hand on a Rhodia pad in two days. I still have it here, somewhere. It's a real need. When I need to write, I grab my favorite pen, a Tradio Pulaman, which I have in black and red, and I start writing."

 

Discover how the logo comes to life in our collections.