Getting the Bag. Quite Literally.

"The resale market proves what fashion insiders have always known"

There are clothes, there are accessories, and then there is leverage.

Fashion moves faster than we do, it always has. But, in 2025, the runways have taken to walking, almost too cautiously, towards something resembling contemplation. It’s an unusual pause, as though the industry suddenly noticed it had been sprinting through a landscape blurred beyond recognition.

If this season has revealed anything, it's that designers are wary of betting everything on clothes alone. Collections feel economically prudent, perhaps even a little safe. Even the houses once known for show have found themselves softening their tone; Prada’s muted tailoring, Bottega Veneta’s subdued neutrals, and Dior’s careful referencing to archival simplicity speak volumes about the current hesitance to be loud.

But rather than shy away completely, designers have made a swift pivot towards pieces that have historically weathered uncertainty: accessories. Bags, belts, and jewellery, which have always buoyed profit margins, are now stepping confidently centre stage.

"Bags, bags, bags; Ferragamo Spring/Summer 2025 leans into enduring minimalism, and Dior trades logo mania for lineage and soft tailoring"

Clothes, for so long the obvious stars, are beginning to feel transient. They catch our attention, yes, but increasingly struggle to keep it. We know exactly why: TikTok’s dizzying trend cycles, Instagram’s infinite scroll, algorithms forever nudging us towards something newer, something else. Fashion has sped up and our patience has thinned; amidst this perpetual churn, consumers have started searching for something to hold onto, something built to outlive the brief cultural moment in which it first appeared.

The economics behind it are straightforward. When times feel uncertain, we instinctively reach for what feels stable, tangible, reassuring. Financially, it’s accessories that make sense. Luxury resale platform The RealReal’s latest report confirms as much, highlighting that handbags and jewellery consistently retain far more of their initial value compared to clothing. But perhaps that’s less about finance and more about sentiment.

According to a recent study by Art Market Research, luxury handbags delivered an annual return of 13% between 2019 and 2022. They comfortably outpaced art, classic cars, and even rare whisky. Some of fashion’s most recognisable silhouettes, including Hermès’ Birkin, Chanel’s Classic Flap, and Louis Vuitton’s limited editions, have seen their value climb by as much as 83% over the past decade. The Birkin alone grew at an average annual rate of 14.2% from its launch in 1984 to 2015, outperforming the S&P 500 across the same period.

From left to right: Prada, Bottega Veneta, and Dior, Spring/Summer 2025. The clothes are pared back, the accessories do the talking.

This isn’t a new discovery so much as a long overdue recognition. The investment world might call handbags an ‘alternative asset’, but fashion has always known better, giving an entirely different meaning to the idea of a business model.

This year’s runway fixation on endurance rather than immediacy suggests something deeper than resale statistics or trend reports; it points towards how we're living now. Fashion’s mood in 2025 feels reflective, even introspective, echoing the careful simplicity that followed the 2009 economic shock, or the careful elegance that defined couture after the Second World War. After years caught in volatile cycles of hype and burnout, the industry seems finally to be retreating into intimacy. Designers no longer ask, "Will this photograph well for Instagram?" but instead, "Will someone still reach for this in five years? Ten?"

"Stacked value; Hermès’ vintage campaign makes its point in layers: one luxury, multiple investments"

Ferragamo, historically a house defined by pragmatic luxury, has long understood restraint. Founded nearly a century ago, the Florentine label built its name by resisting the exaggerated silhouettes and ornate embellishments of early 20th-century fashion. Ferragamo preferred subtlety, favouring meticulous craftsmanship and consistency; qualities that have steadily guided the brand through temperamental tastes and market moods.

For its Spring-Summer 2025, creative director Maximilian Davis introduced Ferragamo’s latest exploration of understatement with its Soft-bag: gently rounded and subtle enough almost to miss at first glance. Yet what's notable about the bag isn’t purely aesthetic; but rather, the broader question it engages with. Luxury brands today find themselves facing a curious contradiction: how to convince customers to keep buying without encouraging them to discard.

"Sophia Loren shops Ferragamo in the 1950s, before the house ever needed a logo to speak for it. Nara Smith, 75 years later, carries that same elegance forward."

The idea is simple. Ferragamo, pragmatic as ever, recognises the logic clearly: a bag worth holding onto is also a bag that holds its value. And so, instead of seasonal approach, the house is leaning directly into longevity. What endures becomes more desirable (financially, yes, but perhaps even more so emotionally) than anything designed to dazzle for dazzle's sake.

"Bags, but make it economic logic; the SS25 street style lens proves what the market’s been saying for years."

Ferragamo isn't alone in sensing this new direction. In Paris, AMI moved similarly with the release of its Carrousel bag. Aptly named after Montmartre’s iconic merry-go-round, it embodies a playful and persistant sophistication. AMI’s Alexandre Mattiussi often references Parisian nostalgia, not as a marketing ploy, but as an acknowledgement that genuine sentiment outlasts novelty.

Paris on repeat; AMI’s Carrousel bag echoes Montmartre’s old carousel: sentimental, circular, steady.

To fully grasp this current resurgence of accessories as personal artefacts, it's instructive to revisit a pivotal moment when a bag transcended its functional role to become a cultural icon.

In 1997, Silvia Venturini Fendi introduced the Baguette, a design inspired by the nonchalant way Parisian women tuck their daily bread beneath their arms.

The Baguette was deliberately impractical, perfectly sized to carry little more than symbolic weight. Yet it swiftly attracted a dedicated following. Sarah Jessica Parker famously carried one in Sex and the City, correcting a would-be thief with the now-iconic line, “It’s a Baguette!”

But the bag’s real resonance lay beyond scripted television moments: it meant something to the women who carried it every day, women who instinctively appreciated the pleasure of something created not for practicality, but purely for enjoyment.

"Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw, immortalising the Fendi Baguette as a cultural icon in 'Sex and the City'.

Today, nearly three decades later, FENDI returns to the Baguette with their Patchwork edition; assembling offcuts from past collections into a one, tactile narrative. Each piece is hand-stitched, carefully composed from leather remnants, embedding the brand’s own history directly into the bag’s surface.

The Patchwork deliberately engages with nostalgia, understanding that in uncertain times, referencing the past is a comfort. Fashion historian Valerie Steele traces this impulse to early twentieth-century couture houses, which first recognised archives as more than records of past work, but as assets. Memory itself could sell, especially during periods when confidence felt fragile.

"History by hand; FENDI’s Patchwork Baguette turns offcuts into object memory."

Referencing in fashion isn't solely for the sentimental. It’s strategic. 'Archive-inspired' pieces tap directly into consumers’ deeper desire for continuity; reassurance that certain things hold steady value even as everything else feels volatile. This concept underpins the enduring influence of the ‘It’ bag phenomenon, which the Baguette helped define.

Coined by fashion journalists in the late 1990s, the ‘It’ bag described accessories whose allure far exceeded practical function. Prada’s nylon backpack, Dior’s Saddle, Louis Vuitton’s monogrammed Speedy: these bags conveyed more than style; signalling cultural awareness in their wearers, an effortless familiarity with fashion's invisible codes. FENDI’s Baguette, however, defined this category differently. Its appeal was subtler and more personal.

"Visibility economics; the early 2000s understood the brief: if your bag didn’t travel with paparazzi, it might as well have stayed home"

In his book Possessed, psychologist Bruce Hood suggests that what truly binds us to certain objects isn't their usefulness, or even how they look. Instead, it's the way they become vessels for our personal histories. Objects absorb experiences and begin to embody moments, relationships, even aspects of our identities. Hood explains that possessions gain emotional resonance precisely because we project our inner lives onto them: memories, milestones, routines, moments significant or mundane.

Accessories, particularly now, seem uniquely attuned to this idea. They persist where clothes fade because they naturally hold onto these accumulated narratives. Over time, their value grows, not just in a resale market, but through the subtle accumulation of personal meaning.

They remind us that luxury has never truly been about price or branding alone but more so about objects abilities in becoming deeply embedded in our lives, and outlasting trends because they've become a fundamental part of our own stories.