The Power of a Luxury Handbag

0:07Hello and welcome to The Debrief from the Business of Fashion where each week we delve into our most popular BOF professional stories with the correspondents who created them. I'm senior correspondent Sheena Butler-Young. Luxury handbags are more than just accessories. They're powerful symbols of status, taste, and identity, often becoming central to the image and financial success of many luxury brands. From the iconic Birkin to recent sensations like Elias Tekel and La Merce Croissant, handbags can dramatically shape mainstream fashion narratives and rejuvenate entire fashion houses. But what exactly makes certain handbags resonate deeply with consumers while others miss the mark?

0:48How do brands balance innovation, practicality, and the ever-present threat of copycats in such a crowded market? Joining us today to answer these questions and discuss her story on handbag innovation is BOF luxury correspondent Simone Stern-Carbonnet. Simone, welcome back to the Debrief podcast. Hi, Sheena. Thank you so much for having me. A lot of our listeners probably love a good handbag and maybe they've even splurged on a pricey one or two. But what they might not realize is just how central handbags are to a brand's growth and its status. So can you break down why luxury bags carry so much weight in a fashion house's image and its commercial success?

1:25Absolutely. When you think of the image, just think of any brand right now, Louis Vuitton, Bottega Veneta. What item comes to mind? It's most likely a bag, right? So a bag is often the most recognizable, iconic item that people associate with any of these designers or luxury brands. On the commercial side, it's really interesting because I think a lot of consumers don't realize how central bags are to a brand's financial success. They sell well because, well, whether you're a bag fan or not, most of us carry at least one bag a day or maybe multiple. So it's an easy, functional way to elevate your look, and it also serves a practical function.

2:07So bags are something that people will purchase time and time again. They will use them daily, and if done right, it really becomes the totemic product for a brand. You know, when I think of an IT handbag, and this feels so cliche to say, but like what comes to mind to me immediately is the Hermes Birkin. It was introduced over 30 years ago in 1984, but it still holds this immense cultural cachet. It's one of those bags that has remained so coveted, and maybe 30 years isn't that long ago, but it is the consummate it item. What's behind that success? What did Hermes do to pull this off? So I'm going to say something very controversial here.

2:49I don't really personally see why the Birkin is all that. I know. I know. I agree with you. This might be the last time I come on the podcast, but honestly, I think that it is still a matter of taste and also of who the bag speaks to. And it might not speak to me, but it speaks to a lot of consumers. Why is that? Well, of course, there is the craftsmanship. It's made in France. Hermes claims that it's made by a single artisan for many, many hours. So there is that whole, you know, high quality craftsmanship aspect. But I think as with many luxury items, so much of this is image and allure, which is not necessarily a material focused question.

3:28So Jane Birkin was a muse of the 80s. She is a British actress who, you know, maybe like nowadays, we have a lot of them. We have a lot more of them. We have a lot of influencers who, you know, people might buy rare beauty products because they want to feel like they're closer to Selena Gomez. So I think naming the bag after Jane Birkin made a lot of sense at the time, but it's carried that allure until today. And a big reason for that is because Hermes is very, very good. They're really the geniuses behind engineering scarcity. So they could make more of these bags, right, Sheena? They could, but they don't because they want to keep the supply low to make it harder to get.

4:08And that just automatically in the luxury world makes something more interesting, exciting, rare. More coveted for sure. Absolutely. And there are more recent examples of bags that could be on this trajectory, right? So you mentioned in the article Phoebe Philo's wing-shaped Celine bag and Elias Tekel from last year. These are the recent wave makers in the space. What made those bags so unique and why are they resonating so strongly? So in the 2010s, Celine's wing shaped bag really refreshed that classic top handle silhouette in a way that was, you know, fun and cute, but not too crazy. Basically, Phoebe Philo added kind of these wing shapes to the side of some of her bag designs, and that made the bag on the one hand more practical because you could expand it.

4:54But at the same time, it gave that classic square or rectangular top handle shape a little bit of an innovative twist. And then when it comes to Alaya nowadays, it's really interesting because Alaya was known also, you know, in the 80s in its golden era as this ultra feminine brand. And it wasn't actually primarily known for leather goods at all. It was known for these very clingy, sultry dresses. I think Azadeen Alaya was called the king of cling. So more recently, the brand went quieter, but it's made a big comeback since Peter Moulier took over the creative direction in 2021. So, you know, even though a brand might be successful on the runway or it's more couture, nowadays, the commercial success is so important.

5:38And one of the easiest, easiest if done right, one of the best ways to do that is to make a standout success in the handbag space. And that's exactly what the teckle did. So the teckle is shaped and named after the wiener dog. Very cute. But, you know, it's not so obvious. It's not too literal. It's just a nice elongated shape. And it really speaks to this ultra feminine, very ladylike silhouette that speaks to a lot of consumers again nowadays. I want to talk about prices. I want to back up a little bit. So we're talking about the Hermes, which can be like$10 ,000 to $50 ,000. Where does the Alaya Teckel sit in this and some of the other brands that have had recent successes?

6:17How much do these bags actually cost? So the Alaya Teckel is definitely more accessible than the Hermes Birkin. Another thing that obviously makes the Birkin very hard to get, aside from the scarcity, is that it is so expensive, even on the resale market. Now, the Alaya Teckel is not that expensive. It's in a few thousand, depending on the material it's somewhere between one and a half to three thousand dollars depending on also where your market is what currency etc but so it is pretty accessible it's also a smaller bag so i think the price is elevated for the size of the bag and the amount of leather that's used but a lot of comments have come in saying that the craftsmanship is really stellar the handles are beautifully shaped so the bag apparently does really hold its value and you can see that on the resale market too actually the alaya tackle is still pretty rare on secondhand platforms which means that people are not really flipping this bag that much they're holding on to it but also when it does show up on vestiaire or the real real it's listed at a price that's pretty close to primary retail which would be more in line with what the hermes birkin does although the birkin often sells for more than it would in retail because of its scarcity or if you can get on a wait list for it, right?

7:29For many years. For many years of a wait list. The other factor I would imagine that makes a handbag so central to the success of the brand owner is that it can probably appeal to the aspirational shopper. It's like a gateway drug. Maybe I don't want to invest in a t-shirt or a pair of jeans that came down the runway, but if I invest in a handbag, I don't have to be uber wealthy to do that. I can kind of enter the category with this investment piece. Like you said,$1 ,500, maybe$2 ,000. Talk to me about the aspirational shopper and its ability to bring handbags into the fold as a revenue driver for a brand.

8:07Absolutely. So the aspirational shopper is probably going to want an item if they decide to invest in luxury that is recognizably a luxury item. So a lot of people might not recognize, you know whether a pair of jeans is from Bottega or is from maybe you know a high street brand but they will recognize whether a bag is a Louis Vuitton bag or or from a high street brand right so I think a lot of aspirational shoppers as opposed to the whole quiet luxury old money thing they want to actually show yes I could afford this designer bag so I think this is something that a lot of brands again it depends on the brand they will want to tap into this now again And Hermes is not going to tap into this because an aspirational shopper will probably not be able to or maybe even want to necessarily afford the Birkin.

8:59But at the same time, you have a lot of brands that offer a range of prices. So if you look at Louis Vuitton, yes, they offer bags that are in the double digit, low double digit thousands as well. But generally speaking, we're talking, you know,$1 ,500 to maybe$5 ,000 more or less for a lot of these brands. And that is definitely something that a aspirational customer will save up for. You know, they might not buy one every month, but they're going to maybe buy one once a year. Maybe once a quarter. I can make a quarterly investment of$1 ,500 probably. Depends on, you know, how aspirational you are, you know, where on the aspirational scale do you lie?

9:37But I think that a lot of people will save up for a bag. And it is a fantastic way for brands to then catch customers. It sounds like a Pokemon, but they really are able to then just get the customers in the door. And then if the customer really likes the bag and if they get maybe compliments on it and they feel good about wearing it, then they might be more inclined to later make other purchases. Absolutely. And what about the signature shape thing? I feel like brands are playing with this a lot more in the last couple of years, having a go to shape like the tackle. Why is that so powerful? And are there other ways that brands can innovate or is that sort of the main way to do it?

10:10I think for handbags, the shape is the basis of everything. So it might sound like a strange comparison, but think of cars for a second. If you think of a Ferrari Testarossa or a Volkswagen Beetle, you recognize it first and foremost because of its unique shape. The color then adds variety. And that's what the Teckel is also doing very well. They're adding, you know, different textures, different leathers, you know, grain, smooth, calfskin. I think there's a cow print Teckel out. So, you know, they add different colors, patterns and materials that adds variation. But the shape is really the baseline to make a bag innovative.

10:48And your article also talks about this idea that for a brand to be successful in the handbag space, it has to continue to innovate. But you make the distinction between that and then innovation for innovation's sake. Can you talk us through what's different about powerful statement making innovation and then just brands throwing mud at the wall and seeing what would stick? Yeah, there's a lot of pressure nowadays, also thanks to social media to constantly innovate on the brand side and also for consumers to constantly have new outfits, new fits. So, you know, brands really feel that pressure and they want to continue to also engage clients so that they can drive their sales and their growth.

11:26Innovation for innovation's sake doesn't work because the brand really needs to innovate in a way that still resonates with the overall brand identity. so the teckle works so well because it embodies that very ladylike ultra feminine silhouette that the brand has been known for since the day it was founded the same way we can maybe look at Giacomo's Chiquito micro bag so Giacomo's is known for being very playful kind of cutesy and that's why it works now how would you feel if Dior brought out a Chiquito bag would it have worked I don't know but it might have felt a bit more jarring to the customer or especially the brand fans like, oh, this doesn't really fit with the overall aesthetic or the overall vibe.

12:08And to have a recognizable aesthetic throughout different categories is so important nowadays. Absolutely. So it's knowing who you are as a brand before you start to innovate, not just innovating because you need to come up with something new every season, have a new color, be on social media, be the outfit of the day. It has to come from your core. Absolutely. I think so. I think the only exception could be maybe a one hit wonder where you come up with something that is not really, you know, in your normal brand repertoire and it somehow has success. But I just doubt the longevity of that. And I doubt how that might elevate the brand's overall image, as opposed to just dragging some quick sales.

12:45Absolutely. And so creating a standout handbag is one thing, right? Keeping it desirable is another. You don't really want a one hit wonder, I guess, comparing that to not having a hit at all, you know, but you want it to be, you want to keep it going. Handbags are also particularly vulnerable to copycats, right? So you mentioned the Jacquemus micro bag. That one was a real big victim of copycatting. Why are handbags so vulnerable to being knocked off? It's actually pretty simple. If a bag is successful, others will want to copy it. And now leather or leather imitation materials are readily available all over the place.

13:22Again, not saying the high quality leather or the craftsmanship is readily available, but you can make something similar pretty quickly. You can make it out of polyuthrane, You can make it out of vegan leathers that are made out of all types of vegetables. It's not that hard to source similar materials and to make a similar shape. And of course, because now we know, thanks to this podcast or the article, that handbags are such big sales drivers. A lot of brands are going to, you know, are not even bag focused brands, but even a lot of fast fashion companies might see, wow, this bag shape is doing so well.

13:54People love to buy bags. It's kind of the shape of the moment. Everyone's going to want it. Let's make the same version for, I don't know, a tenth of the price or even less. And then people who can't afford to be in the luxury category or aspirational customers will buy it from us instead. Absolutely. In this way, they're a victim of the very thing that makes them successful, right? 100%.

14:18We'll be back with more of The Debrief right after this.

14:26How quickly can a bag be knocked off? You mentioned that you can replicate leather or the materials quite easily. How quickly does this happen? So if you come out with Jacquemus's micro bag and it's all over social media or your celebrities are wearing on a red carpet, how quickly can a copycat be created? So it depends on the company. But if you're a fast fashion company, then you're probably trained to do exactly this, right? So we have seen or how many of us in the fashion space have seen a runway show. And then miraculously, a month later or even two weeks later, at a fast fashion store, we'll see a very, very strangely similar item appear on the rack, right?

15:07So they're trained to do this. At the same time, I think for, you know, designer brands or luxury brands, they need to be a little bit more careful when they copy designs because a lot of this also can have a huge effect on their reputation. We might expect it from fast fashion brands. We don't expect luxury brands to do very obvious copies. So they need to be a little bit more careful there. What about contemporary brands? I imagine that the Birkins, although Walmart put this theory that I'm about to mention to the test, but I would imagine that the Birkin customer is not the Walmart online shopper.

15:40But if you're contemporary, we've seen this with like the Rose, very popular bag, but you can probably approach that a little bit differently. You can probably give a hundred and$150 version. And by the way, you know, we're in this world, Simone, but I don't know if the average shopper really knows when they're even buying a knockoff. Like my mom would just say, this is a nice bag that happens to shape like a dog that I love. I don't know that every shopper knows that. What about a contemporary brand? Can they do this and get away with it? Yes and no. And I think the Workin or the Walmart Birkin is such a great example because they are so diametrically different, Walmart and Hermes' companies, right?

16:20So in a way, maybe Hermes didn't even feel as challenged by the work in because they were like, OK, we're in such different spaces. Our consumers are never going to overlap. And so we're going to just give you the benefit of the doubt or just turn turn, you know, a blind eye to this one. So they can turn a blind eye and then it might be worth your while if it's a contemporary brand that's like in a Saks or like in a Harrods, like you might want to take them down. Yeah, yeah. I think a big reason why there is so much space for a Walmart to copy a bag like the Birkin, which would have been unthinkable.

16:53Like if Dior copied the Birkin in a very obvious way, that would be crazy. But the reason that a Walmart can do it is one, like we said before, because the consumer bases don't really overlap, but also because there is actually shockingly little legal protection when it comes to copying. so it is I spoke to a lawyer here who told me that it is so difficult to patent a design you have to prove that you're the first one to ever come up with it and try proving that you have to also then prove that the copy is not actually just a strange coincidence and actually a copy so the burden of proof is on the company or the brand claiming that their design was copied.

17:34And this is why a lot of fast fashion companies can do what they're doing without actually getting into legal trouble. They also have a great legal team, I think, that just protects them from... They sit locked and loaded for every time that bag drops. They're just ready to go. Yep, exactly. There's also value to imitation, right? There are cases when imitation signals success. And then there are cases though, when imitation signals a decline or that you're so, I think the word is overexposure or we call it omnipresent a lot on this podcast, but it can be a good thing. In the case of Alaya, I think you said in your article, it was a good thing.

18:09It signaled that it had found a sweet spot in the hand buy category. Other cases, it doesn't. Talk to us about the difference and how do you know as a brand? So I think there's a lot of varying opinions here. Like you said before, imitation can be a good thing. I think Oscar Wilde said imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. And I do think that is true to a certain extent also in the fashion space. At the same time, I had the fortune of speaking to freelance handbag designer Mark Valleanu, who designs for brands like Chloé and La Mer. And he said that once a bag gets copied, it's already over, which is why constant innovation is so important.

18:47And so I think that it's really a timing question for a lot of these bags. So maybe you need to ride that wave as long as you can. And if you're getting copied, you need to then quickly innovate with things like color pattern, you know, then you need to try to keep it going, but your time is probably cut relatively short and then need to come up with the next big shape. So a lot of pressure there. I think the brands can handle it. I'm not worried about the European fashion houses falling behind the ball here, but the overexposure thing is also interesting because Dior's book Toad is a good example of this, I think, in my humble opinion.

19:26I remember when it launched, it had hit that, you know, elusive sweet spot and it became the bag to have. I remember all the influencers, the fashion influencers, their vacation photo on a yacht and that bag in the background or at fashion week. But it almost very quickly became so ever present that it wasn't feeling like a good thing. And I know you came upon this with your article. There were comments mentioning that Dior's bag should not have been mentioned in your article as an example of handbag innovation, because it became a little cringe to some people. Yeah, Sheena, we got so much hate on Instagram for including the book tote in the article and also as one example on the Instagram slides.

20:10But I just want to stress, yeah, the book tote came out in 2018. So we're not saying it's innovative now in 2025. The point is that at that moment, like you just said, everyone and their mom literally wanted the book tote because it was just such a practical bag. It was a designer bag, but it was kind of soft, but still sort of structured. You could use it for work, for travel. You could write your name on it. How cute is that? So it really just had this moment. And I think there is just a level of visual fatigue when you see a bag that is very obvious bag, like everyone can recognize that you're booktote.

20:47When you see that over and over again, I think some people just get tired of it. But honestly, it was a huge success for Maria Grazia and Dior. And, you know, unless you can create that fake scarcity that brands like Hermes create with their Kellys and their Birkins, then you almost can't avoid overexposure. Well, do you think there'll be a time maybe like 20 years from now that you can kind of prop that in back of your Instagram, if Instagram's still around, but like you put it in the background, it's cool again? Because I think we're in a period where I don't see people doing that because it's not cool right now.

21:17Does it come back around? Is it going to be vintage? Absolutely. And I mean, you see that all the time. A lot of the really successful bags, like also staying on Dior, the Dior saddle bag was launched, I don't remember the exact decade, but definitely way before Maria Grazia's time. And then she brought that back. And I think it was also around 2018. She really brought that back again. And so, yes, it absolutely works for bags to come back. You know, it's like the 70s are in again. Although the 70s are always kind of in over and over again. But, you know, I think absolutely these bags, you know, if you have a book tote and you're tired of it, you can sell it if you want.

21:52But you don't necessarily have to. Just wait and see if you feel kind of attached to it. It might just come back. And I do want to back this up with some numbers. You just mentioned Dior and I was a little tough on Dior with the book tote bag. Their sales tripled in four years after they revamped the handbag program. So I want to take it back to the beginning where we said this can be your staple category to drive revenue growth. Are there any other examples of how the handbag has catapulted a brand or a fashion house back into the conversation? Absolutely. Let's just keep going with Alaya while we're at it.

22:28So Swiss luxury conglomerate Richemont acquired a stake in Alaya in 2007. And like we said before, also Peter Muglia since 2021 has really just brought the aesthetic back on point. So thanks to the Teckel's performance last year, Alaya was able to offset the really not so great performance of Richemont's other fashion brands. So that says a lot, right? That one bag was able to do so much, not just for the brand, but for the larger company that that brand sits under. And that just says so much about the impact that a single wiener dog shaped bag can potentially have. So, you know, a lot of brands won't really talk about how much a specific bag makes of their sales, unless it's a huge success like at Dior.

23:13Right. Then they, of course, maybe might want to, you know, share how great that did. But I think that, you know, on a softer note, you can see that brands like La Mer, they're sort of in the accessible luxury kind of cool, innovative category. they have very minimal ready-to-wear collections they're very you know nice high quality basics but their bags are quite unique and they really contrast that minimalist aesthetic of their ready-to-wear and during Paris Fashion Week they opened a exhibition with a Chilean sculpture artist he um I think his name is Carlos Penafiel and the exhibition was called wearable sculptures but it wasn't actually sculptures it was their bags shaped like eggs like scallops like croissants that were on display at this exhibition.

23:58So that really shows that they're pushing the narrative, how important the bags are for this brand as a whole, even if they're not a bag first brand necessarily. I love that. That feels like a nice note to sort of tie things up. But I do have one more question. If you had to drill down your best piece of advice, because you know handbag fatigue is real. We've had, this is ebbed and flowed. It's like footwear fatigue happens too, what people invest in, changes over time. Your best advice for brands in terms of approaching innovation in the handbag space, but also warding off handbag fatigue, if that's possible?

24:30For brands, I think empower your creative design teams and give new voices a chance. You know, if you want to stay innovative, if you want to be part of the conversation nowadays, then don't be afraid to try new things. And I think that's, in my opinion, one of the reasons why Chanel has brought Mathieu Blasi over from Bottega, where he did an amazing job, especially with the handbags, but also with the whole collection. But maybe they realized, OK, you know, yes, we have our classics, you know, they're doing well, but also maybe not so much because we've inflated prices so much. So maybe to engage customers, we need to bring in a fresh perspective that can elevate and create some excitement for our products or even maybe launch a completely new product in the handbag space.

25:12And I think, you know, this looks different for every brand. I think, honestly, Hermes doesn't need to worry so much about innovation, but they're kind of a unique case in the luxury space. Others, the more aspirational customer luxury brands like maybe Gucci or Dior, although, of course, they're not just for aspirational customers, but they really need to blend heritage with a modern twist. Right. So they do best when they ride on what made this brand unique in the first place when it was founded. But they need to also keep it relevant for what consumers want nowadays. And then you get completely new, innovative things happening and that can revive brands like Jonathan Anderson did at Loewe when he launched the puzzle bag.

25:53I think that was the first bag he launched in 2014. It just catapulted him as a designer and also Loewe into a completely new stratosphere. and like I mentioned before, Matteo Blasi was able to do that at Bottega. Staying true to the brand's signature Intrecciato, that woven leather, he really managed to stay true to that but at the same time constantly came up with these new shapes with the sardine bag being my personal favorite. I don't know. I couldn't get with it. All right. You know, that's the beautiful thing. There's something for everyone. Exactly. So you might not want a oily fish top handle on a bag and I might totally want that.

26:31So who would have thought that that was something that appealed to consumers? But the beautiful thing is there's variety for everybody. And I think brands just need to authentically strike the chord with their loyal consumer base because loyalty is so important nowadays and handbags are a way to do it. Awesome. I think we can end it there, Simone. This was so interesting and insightful. Thank you so much for being back on The Debrief. Thank you so much, Sheena. Please be sure to check out Simone's article, In a Market of Copycats, Handbag Innovators stand out at businessoffashion.com. This and other stories are available to BOF professional subscribers only, and you can find the links in the episode notes.

27:08You've been listening to The Debrief, produced and edited by Olivia Davies and Eric Bria. I'm Sheena Butler-Young. We'll be back next week with a new episode. Thanks so much for joining us and be sure to follow us wherever you get your podcasts.