Bags
Bags
Valentino Garavani Shoes and Bags
Valentino Garavani opened his own atelier on Rome's Via Condotti in 1959 and formally established the house in 1960 with Giancarlo Giammetti, an architecture student he met that year who became the business partner running the commercial side. The 1962 haute couture debut at Palazzo Pitti in Florence made the house's name almost overnight, and its saturated signature red, nicknamed Rosso Valentino, has stayed a house code ever since.
Chloé Shoes and Bags
Gaby Aghion started Chloé in Paris in 1952, naming the house after a friend because a woman of her social standing was not supposed to have a job. The label made its name by treating luxury as something you could wear off the rack rather than have fitted at a couture house, and it kept proving that with the designers who passed through, from Karl Lagerfeld to Stella McCartney to Phoebe Philo.
Toteme
Elin Kling, a Swedish fashion journalist, and Karl Lindman, an art director who had worked with Interview magazine, founded Toteme in New York in 2014, the same year they married, before moving the company back to their native Stockholm in 2016. The name started as Totem until Kling suggested softening it with a final e, and the label built its identity on pared-back Scandinavian tailoring: poplin shirtdresses, boxy bouclé jackets and a signature fringed scarf detail.
STAUD Dresses and Bags
Sarah Staudinger, previously the fashion director at Reformation, launched Staud in Los Angeles in 2015 with business partner George Augusto, naming it after her own childhood nickname. The brand started as a made-to-order customization concept before pivoting to ready-to-wear once customers made clear they wanted the bags and dresses as designed, a shift that produced breakout accessories like the Bissett and Moreau bucket bags.
Saint Laurent: The Paris House Founded in 1961
Saint Laurent is the Paris house Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé opened on December 4, 1961. I go through the accessories and shoes worth a look.
The Row Bags and Shoes
Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen founded The Row in New York in 2006, after Ashley spent a year trying to design an ideal, no-logo white T-shirt and the pair built it into a seven-piece debut collection that Barneys bought in full. They named it after Savile Row and, for its first three years, gave no interviews about it at all, betting the clothes could carry the label without their names on it.
Bottega Veneta Shoes and Bags
Bottega Veneta was started in 1966 in Vicenza by Michele Taddei and Renzo Zengiaro, two leathermakers who decided the House would never need a logo. The specific thing they built instead was intrecciato, the woven leather technique introduced in 1975 that turned a manufacturing workaround into the label's entire visual language.
Khaite Shoes, Bags and Accessories: Leather Pumps and Sandals
Catherine Holstein launched Khaite in New York in 2016 with backing from Adam Pritzker's Assembled Brands, after a first eponymous label she started as a Parsons student closed in the 2008 financial crisis and a five-year run designing for Gap, Vera Wang and The Elder Statesman taught her the parts of the business she'd missed the first time. The label opened on denim and cashmere knitwear before adding runway shows in 2019 and an in-house bags and footwear line the same season, and Holstein still designs under a name modeled on the Greek word for long, flowing hair.
Isabel Marant Bags
Isabel Marant started sewing at fifteen after asking her father for a machine, then trained at Studio Bercot and apprenticed under Michel Klein before launching her own label in 1994 out of a Paris squat courtyard runway show. Her first boutique opened in 1998 on rue de Charonne and remains the flagship today, the same neighborhood logic she's built her entire aesthetic around: Parisian, unbothered, dressed like you didn't try. She's the designer credited with putting the wedge into the sneaker around 2010, a shoe that a decade later is still copied more than it's matched.
Brandon Blackwood Built A Bag Brand On Pure Conviction
Building an accessories label from nothing in the middle of a saturated market takes either capital or conviction. Brandon Blackwood did it with the second, going from a single style to a full range in under a decade. This edit runs through the bags carrying the house shapes.
The Diesel Bag
Y2K Hardware Playing It Straight
Bao Bao Issey Miyake
Issey Miyake made the first version of this bag in 2000, naming it Bilbao as a tribute to Frank Gehry's museum, before it became its own label, Bao Bao Issey Miyake, in 2010. This edit gathers that same folded, triangle-paneled construction across totes, crossbody bags and shoulder bags.
Call It By Your Name Totes: Hand-Finished Bandana Print Bags
Call It By Your Name turns the cotton bandana, a familiar print with no fashion pretension, into totes and pouches finished by hand. Colombe Campana started the label making bandanas for family and friends, and a South Carolina mill still supplies the cloth. The edit is built around that tension between an everyday textile and a personal, handworked object.
The Marc Jacobs Tote
A Structural Rethink
FANE Bags: Sculptural French Leather Shoulder Bags, No Logos
Explore FANE's sculptural French leather bags, including the Bra, Lisse, and Mie shapes, for logo-free everyday carry with thoughtful proportions.
Hunting Season Bags and Accessories: Handwoven Designer Pieces
Hunting Season was founded by Danielle Corona in 2006 after her time at Valentino, with a point of view shaped by old films, English manor houses and the idea that a handbag can be wearable art. Production now works with artisans in Colombia, where natural fibers and tagua seeds become woven bags, leather pieces and jewelry. The result is restrained enough for daily use but never anonymous.
NEOUS Shoes: Sharp Heels and Textured Bags From London
NEOUS shoes and bags are made for people who like a little architecture in their wardrobe, from a London label founded in 2017. I go through the textured shoulder bags and the sharp shoes Vanissa Antonious designs.
The Marc Jacobs Tote Bag Pink Edit
The Marc Jacobs tote pink options are Ribbon Pink, Hot Pink and Petal Pink, with the name embossed rather than printed. I go through the small and medium sizes, then the shoulder bags and crossbodies.
Gucci Ophidia: The Mini Bag and Every Small Shape to Carry
The Gucci Ophidia line starts with the mini bag, built from GG canvas, leather trim and the web stripe. I go through the camera bag, the pochette and the small crossbodies, then pick the Ophidia I would buy first.
Olympia Le-Tan
Olympia Le-Tan turns the clutch into a small, hand-held argument for taking culture out at night. Founded in 2009 by Gregory Bernard and Olympia Le-Tan, the label is known for hand-embroidered designs that borrow from books, art, and cinema. These are not quiet accessories, and that is precisely why they work.
Liffner Handbags: Scandinavian Clutches, Totes and Shoulder Bags
Liffner builds handbags around the Scandinavian idea that restraint can still have a pulse. Founded in Stockholm in 2012 by Paulina Liffner von Sydow, the brand pairs expressive minimalism with Italian craftsmanship and small-batch production. Croc effects, calf hair, raffia and tassels add a little mischief to shapes that remain remarkably composed.
RUE de VERNEUIL Bags
RUE de VERNEUIL treats the everyday tote as a small piece of Parisian architecture. Founded in 2014 by Vincent Ribat, a former interior designer, the label draws on the American tool bag and the quiet order of Saint-Germain-des-Prés. Its appeal is practical rather than performative, with sturdy textiles, leather trim and shapes that make room for actual life.
Serapian Bags: Mosaico Hand-Woven Leather From Milan
Serapian was founded in Milan in 1928 by Stefano Serapian, who in 1947 invented Mosaico, a technique of hand-weaving narrow strips of lamb nappa leather into a mosaic-like surface. I tracked that woven texture, and its plainer alternatives, across shoulder bags, top-handle bags and totes.
Tod's Shoes and Bags: Gommino, Ankle Boots and Handheld Styles
Tod's traces to a family shoemaking workshop Filippo Della Valle ran in Italy's Marche region, expanded by his grandson Diego Della Valle, who introduced the pebbled-sole Gommino loafer in 1979. This edit moves from boots through structured and slouchy bags to the Gommino family that made the brand's name.