The 2.55 is named like a file entry: February 1955, the month and year of its birth, and the naming convention tells you how the house itself regarded the event. What made it revolutionary was the strap. A chain, threaded through leather, that let a woman put the bag on her shoulder and have her hands back. It reads as ordinary now because every bag since copied it; in 1955 it was a small liberation in quilted lambskin.
The rectangular closure is called the Mademoiselle lock, and the story goes that the name nods to Coco Chanel never marrying. The house retold the whole design in 2005 for its fiftieth anniversary, and the file keeps the original and the Reissue as separate entries, because the market does.
The founding document. True vintage 2.55s from before the serial era carry no sticker at all, which is normal and correct: absence is only a red flag on a bag young enough to have been born with one. Date what can be dated, then read the quilting, the chain and the lock like the file says.
Chanel is the most counterfeited handbag maison on earth, and the superfake era means good fakes now carry good-looking serial stickers and matching authenticity cards. The doctrine: a date code is not authentication. Date the bag with the serial tool, then demand that everything else agree with that era - quilting alignment, stitch density, hardware engraving, sticker typography. For any serious purchase, route through a platform authentication program: eBay physically inspects qualifying handbags in transit.
Model histories and date-code systems compiled from documented maison history, resale-industry authentication references, and period documentation, cross-checked across independent sources.