Paris Fashion Week, and in turn Fashion Month, is finally over – but we haven’t run out of things to talk about. Today’s topic is bags. Handbags, minis, maxis, handheld clutch, slung over the shoulder shoppers, backpacks. No bag is off the table. 

No matter your taste, there’s a bag to satisfy everyone’s wants and needs. Coperni and Ottolinger took the quirky, non-traditional route both in their own respective ways, while Acne Studios and Givenchy gave the it girls something to look forward to. 

As our lives slowly go back to normal and the Fashion Week craze dies down, Culted takes a look back on some of the highlight bags from Paris Fashion Week for reminiscence sake.

Marni’s triangle shopper

Marni knows how to have fun and its SS24 collection was no different. We saw a variety of bags follow a geometric shape but this triangle shopper bag was the one that most embodied Marni’s experimental and fun take on fashion.

The bag is a tricky one. Front-on, it looks like it could be completely flat, but the side of it will reveal its depth constructed like origami. This shopper bag makes its runway appearance in a pastel blue, forest green, wet-cement grey and plain white, all of them featuring an extended Marni-embossed handle on its front and a plastered texture all over.

Acne Studios’ bow tied mini bag

Acne Studios takes the cake for biggest runway rebrand of the season. Acne Studios, a brand known for its big scarves and high-quality denim, gave us a moody, darker and sexier collection that we’re not used to seeing from it.

Though not everything was brand new, with the Multipocket Bag we saw on last season’s runway making its return. Recognizable for its boxy, rectangular shape and bulky pockets adorned with two small bows, this Paris Fashion Week the bag came in a new glossy red colour as well as a classic black hue and the now-signature faded brown.

Elsewhere, we saw a silver-studded rectangular handbag, clutch and briefcase, as if a disco ball had given up its spherical shape. We wouldn’t be surprised to see either of these worn by the brand’s unofficial ambassadors Rosalía or Kylie Jenner.

Balmain’s flower bouquet holders

Florals became the main character of Balmain’s SS24 show, specifically the rose. We saw it printed on textiles, draped in fabrics, and sewn into tops, dresses and of course, on bags.

Florals weren’t just an addition to bags this season, but instead the bags were there to hold the flowers, shaped in bouquet wrapping. Made out of leather, the bouquet holder bags featured diamond stitching. Coming in a faded blue, white, black, yellow, pink colours and polka dot pattern, the bag also featured a golden chain and a braided leather strap, though most models opted to carry it by hand.

Givenchy’s chrome Voyou

The Givenchy Voyou bag has been a frontrunner of the brand’s accessories offering ever since its introduction for SS23. The bag is easily recognizable by its slouchy appearance of double-buckled straps that run across the bag’s body.

Matthew M. Williams gave us a new iteration of the Voyou this season, where his past experience and design aesthetic at 1017 ALYX 9SM really shined. The bag was given a chrome metallic silver look, further accentuated by the hardware silver strap that replaced the leather strap of previous models.

LOEWE’s chain-link shoulder bag

Loewe‘s Creative Director Jonathan Anderson’s playful take on fashion can often overshine his core design ability, but look closer because it’s there. This shoulder bag is a perfect example of it. 

Found in several colourways, the bag is made up of a leather, slouchy body with a sturdy, curved handle most often seen on handbags, with a single circular gold chain hanging down loose from the handle. One version sported a glossy snakeskin print while another featured a knotted rope instead of the goldchain, proving that the designer can keep it serious or loosen it up with a fun detail such as this one.

Coperni’s walkman handbag

After last season’s robo-pups and the Bella Hadid spray-on dress moment, all eyes were on Coperni to see what stunt it would pull out of its sleeve. This season though, the brand kept it quite tame in terms of its theatrical outbursts.

In fact, the key quirk of the Coperni SS24 show was revealed days before the show. The brand posted a photo of its 3D printed CD player bag that also featured in the runway show. The silver rounded bag features all the buttons your nostalgic CD player does, as well as having headphones attached to it, which you can actually listen to music with. 

Could Coperni bring back the Walkman? Probably not. But a Walkman bag? We’re here for it.

Vivienne Westwood’s memorial tote

The Vivienne Westwood show was always going to be an emotional one. Andreas Kronthaler pulled at our hearts strings from the very first look – a relaxed fitted suit with exaggerated lapels and cropped trousers accompanied by a tote bag with a printed baby photo of the late designer and superimposed graffiti-style tags in red in black à la the 1970s Vivienne Westwood punk revolution.

Days prior to the show, the Vivienne Westwood Instagram account posted a series of old photos of the late designer, including a baby image that revealed the collection’s title, “43 Old Town.” We were obviously expecting an homage to Westwood from Kronthaler, but a literal yet not-so obvious one in this sense was a pleasant surprise that got the tears rolling from the get-go.

Alexander McQueen’s caged pouch

This was also an emotional one, as Sarah Burton showed her very last collection for the brand after 13 years of creative direction, taking over after Lee Alexander McQueen’s untimely passing. While Kering may have moved on (already having named a new Creative Director), we have not.

We’re still thinking about that caged pouch handbag. The two-part leather bag, that took a similar shape to McQueen’s Curve Bucket Bag, features an inner creamy-white pouch bag and an outer black caged layer, reminiscent of a rib cage – thus falling in line with the House’s signature skeletal skull. 

Balenciaga’s shoe clutch

Demna went back to his Demna-isms for Balenciaga’s SS24. We saw his playful take on design and consumer culture come back in full force, for example, on the shoe-turned-clutch bag number that Kim Kardashian held in the lookbook.

Balenciaga’s offering of bags this season was one of the strongest we’ve seen come out of Paris. There were the Jane Birkin-ified slouchy rectangular bags, decorated with all sorts of hanging trinkets, like Balenciaga-branded padlocks and classic Parisian souvenir tat.

The most Demna-core bag though was the farmer’s market carrier bags. They came in different variations, featuring all the natural goods from strawberries to greens. It epitomises Demna’s take on consumer culture that was lacking last season, taking a very ordinary, everyday item and turning it into a high end oeuvre d’art.

Ottolinger’s half-handle bag

Ottolinger has a way of playing with different materials to create pieces that look like a DIY art school project, but make it elevated. For SS24, this manifested in the way of a ceramic sculpted bag.

The textural bags came in a classic black and a vibrant pink iteration, both featuring a handle only connected at one end. It’s definitely not one you want to slung over your shoulder but as far as handbags go, the three-quarter handle was an interesting feature that got the crowd talking, on top of its oddly satisfying look.

Y/Project’s pair of jeans

Glenn Martens at Diesel this, Glenn Martens at Diesel that… Let’s talk about Glenn Martens’ Y/Project because this season, Y/Project was a highlight of Paris Fashion Week. It was a beauty-meets-brutalism moment as the designer explored his signature club-meets-couture aesthetic, blurring the lines between menswear and womenswear.

Martens also blurred the lines between clothing’s own barriers and boxes, taking a pair of jeans to create a bag. This mismatch worked perfectly in the collection’s favour, where old jeans were sewn together to create a slouchy hand-held bag (though there is technically no handle), finished off with the Y/project beige and red back label.

Miu Miu’s stuffed mini

It’s time for Miuccia Prada to rebrand from ugly chic to messy chic, because that’s what Miu Miu SS24 is giving. Styled by Lotta Volkova – a favourite of Balenciaga’s – the models from the show looked like they had gotten ready in the dark with untucked shirts and messy hair, though in the best, on-brand for Miu Miu kind of chic way.

The bags this Paris Fashion Week were stuffed and overflowing with garments seen on the runway, such as the speedo-style shorts. Backpacks, shoulder and hand bags were all stuffed to the brim, some of which were even left zip-open.

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