Balenciaga City (Le City)

Published specification

Published size

38.5 x 24 x 15 cm

Category

bag

Materials

agneau lambskin, calfskin

Hardware

brass, silver

Season

permanent collection

Official style codes

not published yet

Published size references (checked against the pages listed below)

• thevintagebar.com

Values here are published references for the model. Anything we could not verify on an open page is left as “not published yet” on purpose — we do not fill gaps with guesses.

Le City Medium measurements in centimetres and inches

Balenciaga sells this design under two published measurement sets, so the tier word alone answers less than it appears to. The rows below use the current series, which is the set the codes in circulation today point to, and the relaunch figures are printed separately in the note and in the size ladder.

Two official sets are still published for this design. The 2024 relaunch series lists the Medium at 38.5 x 24 x 13.5 cm with a 15.5 cm handle drop and a 36 cm strap drop, while the current series lists 38.5 x 24 x 15 cm with a 15 cm handle drop and a 42 cm strap drop. The footprint is identical and the depth and drop are not, so a chart that prints one number per tier is describing one series and guessing about the other. This page, like our guide, treats the current series as the reference set and keeps the relaunch figures visible.

The City Medium against the Nano, Mini, Small, Large and Travel

Six tiers carry the City name in the current range, and the steps between them are not even. The largest single jump is from the Small to the Medium, where 8.5 cm of width arrives with 5.4 cm of depth - which is what turns a flat slouchy bag into a deep one.

Two points from the family table are worth carrying into a buying decision. Depth rather than width is what changes the character of this bag: 7 cm to 9.6 cm keeps the body flat and slouched, while 15 cm and above is where books and tablets start to work at the expense of that flat silhouette. And the strap drop does not rise with size - the Small has the longest drop at 55 cm and the Medium the shortest at 42 cm, so a lower crossbody hang is not something a larger tier buys you.

Dimensions in cm and inches

The City runs six tiers, and the current series differs from the 2024 relaunch series on depth and strap drop.

The City Medium is published at 38.5 x 24 x 15 cm in the current series, which is 15.2 x 9.4 x 5.9 inches, with a 15 cm handle drop and a 42 cm strap drop. The same tier in the 2024 relaunch series is published at 38.5 x 24 x 13.5 cm with a 36 cm strap drop: the footprint is identical and the bag is 1.5 cm shallower with a 6 cm shorter strap.

The full ladder this site publishes runs Nano 18.5 x 12 x 7 cm, Mini 24 x 16 x 9 cm, Small 30 x 19 x 9.6 cm, Medium 38.5 x 24 x 15 cm, Large 46 x 29 x 17 cm and Travel 55 x 35 x 20 cm. Strap drops do not rise with size — the Small has the longest at 55 cm and the Medium the shortest at 42 cm — so a low crossbody hang is a per-tier question rather than a function of the size.

Inch values are the published centimetres converted at 2.54 cm per inch and rounded to one decimal, the same rule the guides use. Rows with no published figure say so.

How to recognise it in a photo

Motorcycle-style shoulder bag: studs on the front, leather zip pulls, side buckles and a small mirror hanging at the top.

Not this style when: A rigid body with a curved front arch is an Hourglass.

This is a soft bag with a lot of small hardware, so the photo checklist is about confirming the family first and the tier second. Every tier carries the same cues in proportion, which is exactly why the tape matters more than the styling.

1. Hand-braided doubled handles, described in the guide as waxed-cord braiding on the current Mini, Small, Medium and Large.
2. A front zip pocket with a knotted leather pull, the one front detail that appears consistently across the standard tiers.
3. Small studs across the body panel and small metal buckles at the corners, with no published stud count per tier; the guide deliberately avoids quoting one.
4. A two-way top zip that opens from either end, which is the construction detail that lets the deep tiers be packed from a corner.
5. A small removable mirror, listed for the current standard tiers and not listed on the Nano or the Travel page.
6. A slouched silhouette when the bag is set down empty: a partly empty City measures smaller than its numbers and looks smaller than a full one.
7. A tape across the widest point of the body, excluding the handles: 30 cm is the Small and 38.5 cm is the Medium.
8. A tape across the gusset, which is the measurement that separates the two published series for the same tier, 13.5 cm against 15 cm on the Medium.

What the 38.5 cm City body carries

External dimensions do not predict usable space in this design, because the lambskin body redistributes whatever it holds instead of keeping a box shape. The notes below follow the published tiers and the guide's own load description.

A full wallet, a pouch, a water bottle and a folded scarf fit in the Medium, which is the everyday tier of the family. Because the body is soft, the bag spreads along its 38.5 cm length rather than stacking, and the load sits low and flat against the hip on the 42 cm strap.

What the Medium will not do is documents. An A4 folder has to bend and a laptop stands above the rim; the Large at 46 x 29 x 17 cm is the tier this site publishes for a 13-inch laptop, and the Travel at 55 x 35 x 20 cm is the only one that behaves like luggage.

• A book and a small tablet together, which is the load our guide assigns to this tier and not to the Small.
• A phone, a wallet and keys, the everyday set that fits from the Mini upward.
• Sunglasses in a soft sleeve rather than a rigid case, because the 24 cm height leaves little headroom for hard items.
• A document folder or a slim laptop, which our guide calls plausible at this size but only after checking the device against the two-way zip opening, the lining and the rounded corners.
• Not a rigid briefcase insert: on a 15 cm gusset a hard case straightens the body and removes the slouch the design is built around.
• Not a full change of clothes: the guide assigns overnight loads to the Travel tier at 55 x 35 x 20 cm.
• A partly empty body, which is a legitimate way to carry this bag - the same Medium measures smaller and reads smaller when it is not full.

The list is derived from the published tier measurements and the load description in our Balenciaga Le City size guide, not from measuring a specific bag. A slouchy lambskin body gains and loses usable space with what it carries, so treat this as an estimate for the size and check your own largest item against a photo of the piece.

Capacity notes follow the tier notes in this site’s City guide, and the ladder above uses the current-series figures with the 2024 relaunch values printed alongside.

How it compares with the next size up

The Small and Large tiers bracket the Medium, and the ladder continues in both directions.

Down a tier, the Small at 30 x 19 x 9.6 cm gives up 8.5 cm of width and 5.4 cm of depth — and it is the tier that sits inside most personal-item limits. Up a tier, the Large at 46 x 29 x 17 cm adds 7.5 cm of width and 2 cm of depth and is the first tier where a 13-inch laptop is realistic.

Below those, the Mini at 24 x 16 x 9 cm and the Nano at 18.5 x 12 x 7 cm are crossbody tiers: the Mini takes a phone, a cardholder and keys, and the Nano is the smallest body in the range. The strap drops matter as much as the sizes here, because the Medium carries 13 cm lower than the Small does.

Compared values are the published outside measurements listed in the ladder table above.

Lambskin, handle construction, hardware and details

The standard tiers are built in Arena lambskin, and the guide is careful about how far a family name can be taken: the leather on a specific piece has to be read from that piece's own page rather than from the design name.

Leather

The standard current tiers are published as Arena lambskin - lamb rather than calf - and older product pages use the name Arena Storico. Special versions are built differently, including metallic-effect lambskin and at least one Medium pairing suede with glossy calfskin, so where softness or surface wear matters, read the finish off the piece.

Lining

Cotton canvas on the standard leather versions, according to the guide's material notes. It adds a note of caution about historic examples from the early 2000s and about special finishes rather than assuming the same interior everywhere.

Handles

Hand-braided and doubled. The current Mini, Small, Medium and Large pages specify waxed-cord braiding, while the Nano page describes hand-braided leather without the cord detail, so the internal construction should not be assumed identical across tiers.

Hardware tone

The tone is set per product code rather than per tier: brass and aged brass appear on Nano pages, a shiny silver tone on the standard Medium, matte black on the Large, and an aged-gold finish on the suede and glossy calfskin Medium version. The guide notes that a colour name is not a plating specification.

Details that vary by code

The removable mirror and the interior zip pocket are listed on the current standard codes rather than on every tier, and the guide treats a missing line in a product page as unknown rather than disproved. If the mirror or the pocket matters to you, the specific question to ask is whether that code includes it.

Current catalog photos for this style

12 album photos in this batch, each labelled with the album reference (mark_code) you can quote in a message.

Each caption is the album reference for that piece, so a photo here can be matched back to the listing it came from. Nothing on these photos has been covered or altered.

Balenciaga City questions buyers ask us

Model references to compare with the City

These pages use the same published-specification format, so a size, a strap drop or a depth can be compared without leaving the site.

• Balenciaga Hourglass A structured top-handle body from the same brand, for buyers who want the opposite of this slouch.
• Balenciaga Rodeo Another current Balenciaga shape, useful when comparing how the brand's proportions differ across lines.
• Bottega Veneta Jodie 28 x 23 x 8 cm in the Mini tier, an intrecciato hobo that carries in a similar soft shoulder way.
• Saint Laurent Jamie A quilted soft shoulder bag, the closest slouchy alternative in another house.
• Celine Luggage Another soft, structured-edge shoulder bag whose depth rather than width decides its capacity.

Sources and check dates for the City figures

Every figure above comes from one of the records below. Each row states where the value is published on this site and the date it was last checked against that record.

External pages are read-only references for published measurements; they are not partners of this site and their figures are quoted, not endorsed. Where two records disagree, both numbers are printed above instead of one being averaged away.

Why this page is here

Album listings that match this model

26

Published references checked

1

Album photos on this page

12

The album count comes from titles in the current catalog batch that name this model (19 in the archive record, 26 in the latest recount). Photos are the record for each piece.