Size: 9.45 x 9.84 x 4.33 inches Notes from the Curator The Queen Margaret backpack belongs to a collection launched between 2016 and 2025, its name an evocation of aristocratic bearing rather than a specific historical figure. Alessandro Michele reintroduced the bee motif—originally used at Gucci in the 1970s under Aldo Gucci's leadership, inspired by his affinity for nature—in his Fall-Winter 2015 collection, drawing on what he describes as a fascination with nature's physical and spiritual beauty. The trapuntata technique visible here—chevron quilting that arranges stitches in inverted V shapes converging at a central point—lends the off-white and black calfskin a geometric rigor that sets the backdrop for the bee clasp, detailed with glass pearls on the wings and red crystals on the body. The bee itself serves as an homage to a cache of three hundred gold-and-garnet bees discovered in the tomb of fifth-century monarch King Childeric, connecting the house's embellishment language to European traditions in which the bee has long been viewed as a symbol of nobility, appearing in family crests, paintings, and tapestries. The bamboo top handle recalls Gucci's material innovations of the 1940s and roots this convertible piece in a lineage of house codes made newly exuberant.