It tells us an awful lot about a year—and in fact—a decade, if many of the period’s season-defining trends focused on what we carried on our shoulders and in our hands. Yes, we had the beginning of the 2020s to thank for Barbiecore, quiet luxury and the Y2K renaissance, but the real talking points were the It bags that made flash-in-the-pan trends feel like fully realised aesthetics. Whether you cooed over JW Anderson’s pigeon clutch or preferred Loewe’s puzzling take on the tote, fell for Bottega’s woven styles or grabbed the Anthropologie dupe that went viral on social media, you found your way here first and foremost because you are a bag lover; and if you’re looking for the latest bag trends to invest in, the first place to start are the runways.
Ready-to-wear might have its timeless staples (the wool coat, the cashmere knit, the perfect pair of everyday jeans, for example), but we get to have a little more fun experimenting with our accessories. Needless to say, there are the eternal icons that have been around for decades (the Hermés Birkin and the Chanel 11.12 spring to mind), but when we’re refreshing our wardrobes with a little update on our seasonal style, there’s nothing quite like a pulse-quickening, lust-worthy bag to bring things bang up to date. So, what can we expect from 2024?
In the name of good journalistic research, I set about scouring the runways and analysing the 2024 collections to bring you the key handbag trends I’m confident we’ll start seeing everywhere over the next 12 months. From the supersized evening bags that are even bigger than last year’s totes to the colour trend that influencers and editors are already backing, keep scrolling to see the six handbag trends that bring new meaning to the term “arm candy”.
