SPECIAL POST: Asian Brocade "Obi" Bags - With Info About Gump's San Francisco Department Store

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Trio of Japanese brocade fabric "obi" bags, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Asian Brocade "Obi" Bags
Including Info About Gump's

The Vintage Purse Museum is very pleased to share photos and old advertisements relating to Japan-made brocade fabric handbags, which were often referred to in old ads as "obi" bags. An obi is a sash or belt traditionally worn with a kimono. We could not find evidence that these handbags were made from actual obis, and instead believe that this word was used as a marketing descriptor rather than a fabric source.

While there were numerous fabric, leather, and straw handbags imported to the US from Japan in the early 1900s to the 1970s, our focus for this pictorial are those specifically made of brocade, which is a woven, raised fabric that often has metallic threads. 

During our research, we saw several references to "saga nishiki," a very old Japanese form of weaving, used in the manufacture of different types of items, including handbags. We looked into this further, and learned there are other weaving techniques from Japan that have an equally rich history, including tatenishiki and nukinishiki. (Read more about them here.) 

Black brocade clutch, 1920s-1930s, no maker label. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Reverse of the clutch, showing its back strap.

Interior of bag above, with coin purse and attached mirror. The hontsuge (boxwood) comb came to The Vintage Purse Museum with the bag. It is hand-engraved with Japanese characters and art.

Our primary resource for this post is the newspaper archive to which we subscribe. We reached out to a fashion museum in Kyoto, Japan, and they kindly responded, but were unable to provide information. We also messaged a Japanese company that had the same name as one of the makers of this style of bag, but did not hear back. We will update this post if we receive more information. We also provided links to additional resources throughout this article, which you can access via the highlighted text.

Before we share our research, we must address a common question, which is: "When were these made?" Proper dating of all styles and eras of handbags is something of an obsession of ours, and we strive for accuracy whenever possible. Sometimes a clue is the use of vintage hardware such as metal zippers, bag frames or clasps, as well as linings or mirrors. 

That said, obi brocade bags can be very difficult to date due to the fact that many of the same styles, using similar fabrics, were made over decades. Here we're focusing on those from the 1930s-1970s, but newspaper advertisements often don't come with accompanying sketches, so pinpointing the correct era can be a challenge.

Red and gold brocade large-size fold-over clutch or lingerie bag, no maker tag, date of manufacture unknown. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Early Mentions

The earliest newspaper advertisement (directly below) that we could find for this style of bag was from 1907, available at A.A. Vantine & Co. (This does not mean these bags weren't sold in prior years.) Note that the ad says "Chinese and Japanese brocade bags." The early 1900s was a chaotic period for China (including a famine from 1906 to 1907), so it is unclear how these bags made it to the US. However, with Hong Kong under British rule from 1841-1997, it is possible that these exports were facilitated by the UK. 

Next is an advertisement from 1916, in which Brooklyn, NY-based store Frederic Loeser & Co. (founded 1860, defunct 1952) claims to be the first in the area to sell such bags. 
Here's a 1917 Marshall Field & Co. (founded 1852, defunct 2006) advertisement showing that Japanese brocade fabric was available to home crafters. $2 per yard equates to approximately $50 in buying power in 2025, which would mean that the fabric would've been quite pricey back then.

Anna Mae Stoever "Mrs. H.F." Wichman (1874-1921) of Hawaii utilized this type of fabric in a homemade bag in 1918, then donated it as a prize for a society event. She was the second wife of Henry Frederick Wichman (1866-1921), who owned a jewelry store in Honolulu.
Sales of Japanese brocade bags continued through the mid-1920s and began ramping up in the 1930s. Here's another Vantine's ad, dated 1925. Many of these handbags featured enameling and/or semi-precious stones on the frames and clasps. The ad following it is from 1930, Wanamaker's, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

09 Apr 1930, Wed The Philadelphia Inquirer (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) Newspapers.com
We found the following 1932 Weatherby-Kayser (shoe store) advertorial extremely interesting as it indicates that at least some of the bags imported to the US were made of Japanese fabrics, but constructed in China. As we mentioned previously, exports to the US could have been facilitated by the British, as Japan and China were often engaged in conflicts. 1932 in particular was a devastating year between the two countries.

This ad says that the bags have "clasps of carved jade." Our Saks Fifth Avenue handbag below this ad features a jade-embellished clasp and frame.


Brocade bag with jade ornamentation on its frame and clasp. Labeled Saks Fifth Avenue, with mirror and attached coin purse. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

The Gump's Connection

By the 1930s, the Japanese fabric bag trend was embraced by numerous makers, including D. Balazs, a San Francisco company we wrote about in 2021. We interviewed Lisa Balazs, granddaughter of Deszo and Julia Balazs. During the course of our phone conversation with Ms. Balazs, she solved a mystery for us. 

For years, we'd wondered where San Francisco department store Gump's (founded 1861 and known for its Asian antiquities) sourced its popular Japanese obi bags. We queried a number of Asian antiquities experts, but didn't receive an answer until Ms. Balazs told us that her family's business wholesaled obi bags to Gump's. The Balazs workshop was on Post St., across the street from Gump's department store.

1930s-1940s Asian brocade clutch with matching compact by D. Balazs of San Francisco, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. 

The advertisement directly below is for Balazs's "exhibition of Japanese obi bags." "A." Balazs may have been a typographical error, or could've represented Arthur Balazs, son of Deszo and Julia. Arthur would've been five years old when this ad ran in 1930.

Gump's sold obi bags from the 1930s through at least the 1970s, so it's possible they used other local manufacturers over the years. Per some labels inside these bags, Gump's also imported them from Japan. We reached out to Gump's and to a writer of a book about the store's history, but did not receive a response.

In 1947, Richard B. Gump (1906-1989) filed for a trademark at the US Patent and Trademark Office for brocade bags, purses, and billfolds. The trademark was granted in 1949. On the registration documents, the company says it first used its name for this purpose in 1932. The trademark for this category of Gump's products expired in 2000.

The Vintage Purse Museum currently has four Gump's handbags. These are beautiful and highly collectible, but, like other brocade bags, are often difficult to date, as Gump's bags from the 1930s-1940s aren't much different than those produced in subsequent decades. 

Gump's handbag advertisement in the February 1942 issue of Harper's Bazaar magazine. The Honolulu Gump's location opened in 1929 and closed in 1951. Original ad from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. 

Orange and gold brocade Gump's clutch bag with metal dragon-motif clasp and back strap, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Label inside bag above.

Gump's brocade bag made in Japan, with original box stamped "Made in Japan for Gump's San Francisco." From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

The Gump's handbag directly above and the one directly below have "Made in Japan" on their labels, which means that they were not wholesaled to Gump's by a US maker, but contracted to a Japanese factory by Gump's or an importer/middleman on behalf of Gump's. "Made in Japan" could indicate that these were from the 1930s, but they could also date from the post-WWII era, which we discuss later in this pictorial.

Gump's clutch, made in Japan. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Bag above, unfolded. 

Gump's label inside bag above.

05 Dec 1937, Sun The San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco, California) Newspapers.com

Evans, best known as a compact and vanity bag company, collaborated with Gump's on a line of brocade bags. These bags likely came with a compact and lipstick case. Below are photos of our Evans for Gump's clutch, and 1942 and 1948 newspaper advertisements with sketches of similarly styled Evans bags. We believe the 1940s is an accurate era for this particular example of a Gump's bag.

Evans brocade evening bag for Gump's, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Evans imprint inside bag above.

Gump's imprint inside bag above.


29 Nov 1942, Sun Buffalo Courier Express (Buffalo, New York) Newspapers.com

24 Nov 1948, Wed The Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, California) Newspapers.com
Gump's was a prestigious shopping destination in the 1960s-1970s. In 1967, Muriel Humphrey (1912-1998), wife of US Vice President Hubert Humphrey (1911-1978), was slated to visit San Francisco on her birthday. Democratic National Committee chairwoman Ann Wertheim "Mrs. Lionel" Alanson, Jr. (1926-2018) went to Gump's to buy Mrs. Humphrey the gift of an obi bag, as reported by Oakland Tribune columnist Robin Orr Boone (1924-2000).

13 Dec 1970, Sun The San Francisco Examiner (San Francisco, California) Newspapers.com

We know that Gump's sold these bags through at least the 1970s, thanks to a 1979 San Francisco Examiner interview (by John Stark) with dancer/actress Ann Miller (1923-2004). Ms. Miller told the story of wanting a Gump's obi handbag when she visited San Francisco in 1937 at age 14, but her mother wouldn't let her have one. During her 1979 visit, she went to Gump's and purchased two of them! 



The most recent newspaper advertisement we could find referencing Gump's "obi brocade" was from 1993, and it wasn't for handbags, but brocade-covered photo albums, made in Japan. However, this does not mean Gump's didn't sell Japanese brocade handbags past Ms. Miller's 1979 interview. It's simply the last mention we could find of them in the newspaper archive.

The Effects of WWII

By the late 1930s, newspaper advertisements for Japanese fabric bags sold in the US began to taper off, possibly because the fashion trend had fizzled. However, it is likely that an even greater influence on this downturn was WWII, which began in 1939, with Japan entering the war just a year later. 

Obi-style fabric bag in near-perfect condition, no maker tag. It came to us with another bag of the same style, but with a different type of fabric that was not a brocade. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Reverse of bag above, with back strap and matching coin purse.

After the US became involved in WWII following the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, imports from Japan were halted. This also happened with Czechoslovakian wood-beaded bags when the factory that made them was taken over by the Nazis for war use. Obviously, this was a period of shortages and rationing of all types of items in the US and abroad.

It's interesting to note that our Harper's Bazaar Gump's ad is from February 1942, which was just a few months after the Pearl Harbor attack. We can only assume that Gump's had an inventory of these items prior to 1942, or that local manufacturers such as D. Balazs had enough fabrics and ornamentation to make the bags during wartime. 

Many advertisements for Japanese fabric bags of the 1930s-1950s used the words "the orient" or "oriental," which, depending on context, may not be acceptable today. However, with anti-Japanese sentiment in the US during and directly after WWII, this descriptor may have been the preferred, broader marketing term. 

We wrote an article about 1940s-1950s "Persian," "Oriental," and other identifiers (some outdated) for a specific handbag and apparel trend. Sometimes these words were used interchangeably, or as an "exotic" catch-all to describe the fabric prints, and didn't actually refer to the location of manufacture.

We're not sure if the brocade bags in the 1936 advertisement below, which uses the word "Oriental," are made of fabric from Japan. However, detail of the sketches is among the most striking that we've seen for this style of bag, so we had to share it. "Iran gold-shot tapestry" is also mentioned in this ad. This refers to a textile that has metallic fibers, similar to brocade. Below this ad is a bag from our collection that resembles these.

1930s brocade handbag with painted tile clasp, similar to the bags that appear in the ad above. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.


We also have in our collection a similar 1930s evening bag by famous midcentury maker Koret. It is a floral brocade, but features a tile with what appears to be a geisha painted on it. Inside is Koret's signature leaping antelope logo, but no country of origin. (1935 ad for a similar bag below our photos.)

1930s Koret floral brocade clutch, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Closeup of the painted tile ornament on the clasp, which appears to be a geisha.

Interior of bag above, with attached coin purse that has an attached mirror, and Koret leaping antelope logo.

05 Dec 1935, Thu The Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, California) Newspapers.com

Post-WWII Japanese Handbags

Following the end of the war in 1945, Japan reestablished its trade alliance with the US, which included the export of handbags and other products. As relations improved, Japan also saw an influx of tourism, which led to many bags and other items being brought back to the US by travelers, including those in the armed forces. 

Among the treasures in The Vintage Purse Museum's collection is a coat with matching pouch-style drawstring bag, a gift of our curator's mother. This set, made by Fujibayashi, was a souvenir brought back to the US for the then-teenager (b. 1937), by her brother (b. 1933), a US Navy veteran, who was stationed in Japan during the Korean war (1950-1953).

1950s brocade coat and matching bag, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum, a gift of our curator's mother (b. 1937).
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Label inside coat above.

We believe tourism is also how The Vintage Purse Museum ended up with a massive lot of Japanese-made handbags. About a decade ago, we took a chance on this lot. Due to the lack of clarity in the seller's photos and description, we didn't know precisely how many bags would arrive. Nor did we know that most of them would have their original boxes, and that some of these bags were never used. As you can imagine, this was one of the top three most exciting "unboxings" that has occurred at The Vintage Purse Museum!

Some of the gift boxes that were included with our purchase of a huge lot of vintage Japanese handbags. Each of these contains a bag or accessory such as a wallet or cigarette case.

Not all of the boxes contained handbags made of brocade. Some were composed of other materials, and some had bamboo handles, and/or original interior packing material, which we believe to be rice paper. As these boxes came from one source, our (unproven) theory is that the person who originally purchased them had visited Japan and obtained them from the gift shops of the hotels at which they stayed, possibly on multiple trips during the 1950s-1960s. (We're leaning toward 1960s on these, but, once again, a proper time frame is difficult to discern.)

We're showing just a sampling of the bags and accessories that came in this lot, which also included a souvenir pouch with netsuke, and a drawstring bag made in the style of roketsuzome (not pictured).

Some of the brocade bags that came with this large lot.

Unlabeled box bag that came with the large lot in its original gift box. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Brocade clutch and matching cigarette case, with original gift boxes, from the lot of bags acquired by The Vintage Purse Museum.

Large-size clutch from the lot acquired by The Vintage Purse Museum. 

Some of the boxes are labeled M. Yamamoto, a famous evening bag manufacturer that had gift shops inside various hotels. We found several references to this company in a number of travel guides dating from 1950-1975, but were unable to connect with someone in Japan who could share its history. 

Label that appears inside one of the gift boxes in our collection.

M. Yamamoto bag acquired by The Vintage Purse Museum separately from the ones in the large lot pictured above.

Label inside bag above.

There were a number of other 1950s-1970s Japanese makers that also specialized in brocade evening bags. Among our most prized is a novelty bag by Torii, shaped like a book. (See photo collage directly below.) It came with its original brochure, coin purse, and mirror. We found directory listings for Torii as early as 1958, when the company sold handbags and beaded sweaters inside the Imperial Hotel Arcade. The most recent listing we could find was an office location in 1977. 

Torii book-shaped brocade clutch, with coin purse, mirror, and original brochure, which has a handwritten note in English. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. 

As everyone knows, fashion is cyclical, and it certainly appears that the 1930s trend of Asian handbags came back in the 1960s, with some midcentury US makers jumping on the bandwagon. We were delighted to acquire a brocade handbag by Walborg, a company founded by Hilde Weinberg, who we profiled on our website in 2020. While we couldn't find an ad for this exact bag, we did come across a 1966 advertorial for Walborg's obi brocade bags. It's possible our bag is the "soft little pouch" referred to in the text of the advertorial.

1960s Walborg brocade bag with faux tortoise frame and wrist ("pannier") strap, made in Japan. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Interior of Walborg bag above.


Our Research Continues

There's a lot of information we've yet to uncover about Asian brocade "obi" bags, so we plan to add to this pictorial as our research develops. If you have expertise in this topic and would like to share your knowledge with us, please email vintagepursemuseum@gmail.com. We are happy to credit you here.

Meanwhile, scroll down for more advertisements and photos of Asian bags from our collection, as well as some advertisements featuring obi bags of more recent manufacture.

The Vintage Purse Museum's collection of 1970s handbags by Diane Love. We reached out to Ms. Love for comment, but were unable to connect with her.

Wallet with original box, from the large lot of bags acquired by The Vintage Purse Museum.


Bamboo design clutch, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.


Textured black bag with black and gold silk obi-style fabric, and gold-tone frame and clasp. No maker tag. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Asian brocade bag, no maker tag, date unknown, but it appears to be post-1960s. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Asian brocade zippered tote, no maker tag. Likely contemporary and Chinese in origin. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

09 Dec 1985, Mon Chicago Tribune (Chicago, Illinois) Newspapers.com
 23 Nov 1995, Thu The Boston Globe (Boston, Massachusetts) Newspapers.com

 09 Dec 2006, Sat The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) Newspapers.com
 This article c2025 by Wendy Dager/The Vintage Purse Museum. References used were Newspapers.com and MyHeritage.com, to which we have a paid subscriptions, and Google books, as well as sources linked in highlighted text. Please do not use photos or information from this website without requesting permission, vintagepursemuseum@gmail.com.

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