EDITOR’S NOTE: Featuring the good, the unhealthy and the ugly, ‘Look of the Week’ is an everyday sequence devoted to unpacking the most talked about outfit of the final seven days.
This week, style editors, influencers and people usually in the enterprise of costly garments went envious at the sight of Harry Styles. Not simply for the causes one may count on (dashing attractiveness, fame and fortune) however as a result of he was carrying a maxi leopard print Chanel flap bag designed by the French luxurious home’s newish inventive director of style, Matthieu Blazy.
It was a loud and proud proclamation that Styles had gotten his palms on one of the most in-demand, status-bestowing purses of the second, first unveiled at Chanel’s Metiers d’art show in New York. In quick, he was carrying the It-bag du jour.
Since Blazy’s first ready-to-wear assortment for Chanel arrived in shops final weekend, the issue in buying one of his designs has been properly documented. “Let me tell you, the iconic Rue Cambon Chanel was A SCENE on March 5th,” Kaelen Haworth, a stylist and proprietor of the Toronto-based designer and classic clothes retailer Absolutely Fabrics, who was in Paris for style week, wrote on her Substack. “Shoppers Gone Feral” is how The New York Times headlined their protection on Monday of prospects swarming the Chanel retailer. Stylist Gabriella Karefa-Johnson, who has dressed the first girl of New York Rama Duwaji, described it in her Substack as “mayhem,” noting that her trendy counterparts had been “losing their ever-loving minds” over attempting to get their palms on the new merchandise.
Yet, regardless of the many profitable hauls that had been consequently shared on social media, Chanel’s delicate maxi flap bag was one of the hardest items to accumulate (reportedly attributable to low availability), prompting some prospects to query if the model is perhaps taking a leaf out of the Hermès playbook, the place the availability of its most iconic merchandise — significantly the Birkin and Kelly luggage — is proscribed to boost their desirability and worth. All of this lore imbues Styles’ newest outfit with an if-you-know-you-know edge.
When you take into account most of the It-bags in historical past — the Chanel 2.55 bag launched in the Nineteen Fifties, the Dior Saddle Bag in 1999, and the Celine Luggage tote bag in 2010, to call a number of — they’re normally coveted and worn by ladies, lengthy the dominant pressure in luxurious spending. But a brand new era of male celebrities are making the case for investing in luggage past the nondescript leather-based satchels, city roll-top backpacks, canvas duffel luggage that most males have traditionally carried round.
Fashion-forward males like Jacob Elordi, A$AP Rocky, and Pharrell Williams haven’t simply normalized carrying high-end luggage but in addition embraced experimental shapes and kinds — ceaselessly showing in public with manufacturers like Bottega Veneta, Chanel, and Goyard. (Judging by the paparazzi pics, Elordi’s assortment is intensive, having been photographed sporting the Andiamo, the padded Cassette, the Maxi Veneta and enormous Hop tote – all from Bottega Veneta.) Meanwhile, Bad Bunny has a Gucci Jackie 1961 shoulder bag; British actor Kit Connor has an electrical blue JW Anderson Bumper bag; and Timothée Chalamet has lately been seen displaying a penchant for mini-purses like his near-microscopic Hermès Kelly in orange and black, and small Chanel metallic crossbody bag.
As extra males begin to put money into self-expression, luggage have turn out to be essential style statements somewhat than simply utility gadgets. When it involves difficult stereotypes and broadening various expressions of masculinity, that is evidently a win — however for ladies, the competitors to buy our beloved It-bags has now doubled.