The Ashtray Archive · a collector's field guide

Cigarette Cases
& Holders.

The other half of the kit: hard cases, soft cases, pack holders, holder tubes and case necklaces, from streetwear to the fashion houses to the jewelers who made the form first.

The other half of the kit: the things that carry the cigarettes rather than catch the ash. Five form factors show up again and again. The hard case (metal, lacquer, enamel), the soft leather case sized for a pack, the pack holder that sleeves a full box, the cigarette holder tube, and the case necklace, a fashion-week invention that keeps getting reinvented. Streetwear has done surprisingly little here compared with ashtrays; the deep material is at the fashion houses and, underneath them, the jewelers who made the form in the first place. Same rules as the rest of the guide: every piece below is backed by a listing, auction record or official page, and the ones that could not be verified are named at the end so you do not buy them. Lighters and lighter cases are on their own page.

Streetwear: a short list

Palace made the definitive streetwear cigarette case and then largely left the category alone: a stitched leather sleeve with gold PALACE LONDON foil and an embossed Tri-Ferg on the flap, $58, sold with a dust bag. Palace's own copy read "Smoking kills. So does a lot of other shit though." Everyone else in the West has done one drop at most.

What does not exist: Supreme has never released a cigarette case, pack holder or holder tube in any season from FW11 to FW26. A slug-level pass through every Supreme Community season index turns up ashtrays, Zippos, lighter holsters, stash tubes and pill cases, but nothing built to carry cigarettes. The aluminum flip-top box-logo cases all over Mercari, Rakuten, AliExpress and eBay are bootlegs: no season, no droplist entry, no StockX page. Same story for Wacko Maria, Neighborhood, WTAPS, mastermind, Stüssy, HUF, Kith and Cactus Jack: lighters, lighter cases and ashtrays only. The Kith Kithmas saffiano case (FW25) is a cigar case.

Chrome Hearts, AMBUSH, Westwood: silver and leather

Chrome Hearts has treated the cigarette case as a belt pouch since the 1990s: stitched leather sized for a soft pack, a tongue flap that snaps over a sterling cross, dagger or fleur-de-lis, scroll plaque at the base, belt loop on the back. None of it is sold online, which is why the market is mostly replicas; trust Fashionphile, The RealReal and CH dealers and nothing else. The only all-silver Chrome Hearts smoking piece that could be substantiated is a one-cigarette holder that doubles as a pendant. AMBUSH made the single cigarette into jewelry in July 2019 with a cylindrical case pendant, first in midnight-blue brass ($516 at Browns), then in sterling made in Japan. Vivienne Westwood's orb-engraved steel case is a Japan-licensed staple that has been in production for over twenty years and still sells on the official site (¥23,100, silver or gunmetal, ten cigarettes up to 110 mm).

Chrome Hearts black grained calfskin belt pouch cigarette case with sterling cross
CH CROSS BELT POUCH, GRAINED CALF. $2,765 AT FASHIONPHILE
Chrome Hearts vintage black leather cigarette case with sterling cemetery cross snap
CH CEMETERY CROSS, EARLIER GENERATION. $845 TRR
Chrome Hearts black leather cigarette case with sterling heart and dagger snap
CH HEART & DAGGER SNAP. $295 TRR
Chrome Hearts sterling silver fluted cigarette holder pendant with cross foot
CH .925 CIGARETTE HOLDER PENDANT. $695 TRR
AMBUSH midnight blue cigarette case pendant necklace on silver chain
AMBUSH CASE NECKLACE, MIDNIGHT BLUE, 2019
AMBUSH sterling silver cigarette case pendant necklace
AMBUSH CASE NECKLACE, STERLING, 2021
Vivienne Westwood slim steel cigarette case engraved with orbs
WESTWOOD ORB STEEL CASE, IN PRODUCTION
Vivienne Westwood 1990s tartan cigarette belt pouch with enamel orb
WESTWOOD TARTAN BELT POUCH, C.1990S (DEALER DATED)

Saint Laurent: three eras

No house has kept a cigarette case in the line as consistently. Yves Saint Laurent's own era licensed gold-plated enamel cases through the 1970s and 80s, boxed under the Yves Saint Laurent Collection label. Tom Ford turned it into a runway object: the SS01 Rive Gauche case with a docked lighter came in silk, leather, satin, snake and ostrich, every one stamped with the same series number 039-0959-7033, and his last collections in 2004 closed with jeweled enamel cases. Under Anthony Vaccarello there has been a cigarette case in nearly every season, from the plain silver metal case to a fringed Smoking Box to a hammered-gold case priced like a bag. Hedi Slimane's Saint Laurent Paris and Celine years should have something here, but no listing could be verified, so they are left off.

Tom Ford for Yves Saint Laurent SS01 black leather cigarette case with docked lighter
SS01 BLACK LEATHER + LIGHTER
Tom Ford for Yves Saint Laurent SS01 snakeskin cigarette case with docked lighter
SS01 SNAKE + LIGHTER, WRISTLET
Tom Ford for Yves Saint Laurent SS01 black satin cigarette box with lighter
SS01 BLACK SATIN BOX + LIGHTER

The houses

The big houses sold cigarette cases as small leather goods long before streetwear did. Hermès and Dior made leather and silver-plate cases in the 1950s to 70s, Gucci Florence turned out enamel, brass and horsebit metal through the 70s and 80s, and Louis Vuitton kept a Monogram and Damier pack sleeve, the Étui Cigarettes, in the catalogue from the 1980s into the 2010s. That is the one piece that still surfaces constantly with legible date codes. Chanel caviar CC pouches, Prada nylon and Tom Ford era Gucci reptile boxes cover the 90s and 2000s; the only current-production piece found is Bottega Veneta's intrecciato case. Nothing could be verified for Fendi, Goyard, Loewe, Givenchy, Versace, Burberry, or for Louis Vuitton or Gucci in the Virgil and Michele years.

Avant-garde and archive

These houses treat the cigarette case as an occasional object, not a line, so the record is a scatter of one-offs. Helmut Lang's 2002 leather case and Raf Simons' SS03 Consumed pack necklace are the archive anchors; Jean Paul Gaultier's Japan-licensed leather boxes and monogram case necklaces cover the 90s; Ann Demeulemeester and Yohji Yamamoto's BLACK Scandal line made hand-sewn leather cases with lighter sleeves in the 2010s. Vetements made the format a talking point in November 2016 with a $770 galvanized brass case that WWD compared to $25 blanks, then came back to it with engraved brass under Guram Gvasalia. Rick Owens added a canvas Cigarette Pocket to the SS26 Temple capsule with Suicide. Nothing could be verified for Comme des Garçons, Margiela-era Margiela, Mugler, Dries, Martine Rose, Poell, Saberi or Guidi.

The old houses: what everything above is quoting

Every fashion cigarette case is a quotation of something these makers did first. Fabergé set the template in the 1890s with samorodok gold and diamond Imperial eagles. Cartier, Van Cleef & Arpels and Boucheron turned the case into Art Deco jewelry in the 1920s and 30s, often through the same Paris workshop, Strauss, Allard & Meyer, which is why the VCA and Cartier reeded cases look like siblings. Dunhill imported Namiki maki-e lacquer from Japan and sold it as "fabrication japonaise". Asprey patented a slide-action engine-turned case that is the template for every plain metal case streetwear later copied. Tiffany, Georg Jensen and Bulgari carried the form through mid-century. Auction records are the honest price guide here: hallmarked London and Paris gold trades on weight plus name, lacquer and provenance pieces trade on story.

Unverified, for the hunt list

Real objects with only one thin source behind them. Search by name; buy only with a photo of the stamp.