Fashion · The Bag Edit
The Fall It Bags
The man who said no bags gave us the bag of the season. Buy the shape you'll carry on a Tuesday, not the one that photographed best.
The man who said no bags gave us the bag of the season. Buy the shape you'll carry on a Tuesday, not the one that photographed best.
Pieter Mulier closed five years at Alaïa with a show Vogue called quiet perfectionism. His own summary was blunter. Clothes for real people, not for an image. To reduce, reduce. No bags, no jewelry. Only beauty and clothes and a naked shoe, because that's what Azzedine was.
No bags. And yet he's the reason the east-west silhouette is everywhere this autumn. The Le Teckel — sausage dog in French, for the slimline shape — was the last It-bag of his tenure, and every house is now making a version of that tuck-under-the-arm line.
Which is where most people will go wrong with it. Buying the shape because it's the shape, in a second house, when they already own one. You're collecting the trend at that point, not the bag.
The rule is simpler than the season makes it look. Buy the one you'll carry on a Tuesday. Not the one that photographed best in March.
This isn't an edit for building a bag wardrobe. One shape is enough, and the rest of the season sorted itself into four more of them — the east-west, the half moon, the croc, the super shoulder and the top-handle.
Mine is The Row Agnes 15. Effortless shape, no performance, and the one that will still look like nothing in five years — which is exactly the point.— K.W., Editor-in-Chief
East-west, navy or black tailoring, nothing else on you. The bag is the hardware.
Top-handle, profile on show, a dress you already own. If the bag needs a logo to work, it's the wrong bag.
Super shoulder in espresso, ivory knit, the darkest shoe you have. Brown as the bag, not the outfit.
Every piece in the edit — tap to shop.
Long, low, under the arm. Buy this one first. Alaïa does it twice, then The Row and Prada.
The slouchy bag with a spine — still relaxed, but it holds a line. Saint Laurent, Balenciaga, Tod's and Stella McCartney.
Tap any piece below to shop the whole edit.
Croc, real or embossed, is what rescues a plain shape. Toteme, Jacquemus and DeMellier.
Still tucks under the arm, now with room for a laptop. Bottega Veneta, Miu Miu, Saint Laurent, The Row and Max Mara.
The whole profile is on show, so it had better be worth looking at. Loewe, The Row, Balenciaga, DeMellier and COS.
Every piece in this edit, by the houses behind it. Explore them all.
The man who said no bags gave us the bag of the season. Buy the shape you'll carry on a Tuesday — the house will still be there next year, and so will the bag.— ESVRA