Practical and purposeful, as well as one of the more accessible entry points into owning luxury fashion, handbag design is timeless. Until human beings evolve to have pouches or grow more arms, the necessity to have a bag to carry things will always be with us. While much of fashion is concerned with innovation, nowness, and newness, handbags thus present a challenge for designers to create pieces that both function as timeless, practical companions and signifiers of an artful awareness of contemporary aesthetic culture – all while fitting these pieces holistically into the vision of their collection as a whole.
Handbags also continue to be the revenue anchor for the major fashion houses, and, especially as luxury faces difficult financial headwinds among changing market conditions, bags provide a key investment category.
Coach dug into the archives and playfully supersized some of its most iconic hardware details, while Ferragamo went in a similarly voluminous direction with new oversized versions of its Hug bag.
Fendi and Simone Rocha both defied the expectation that bags need to be quiet and versatile, going big on texture and embellishment for handbags in the same way they did across their ready-to-wear.
While Alessandro Michele’s first runway show for Valentino took the brand into his own distinct aesthetic universe, the handbags got a few new details but largely stayed close to the house’s tried-and-true classic staples, anchoring us in heritage as we get to know this next aesthetic chapter.
Beginning with underwear and building across an entire wardrobe through a very Demna perspective, Balenciaga’s collection featured both minimal and angular classics as well as clevelry layered riffs on the act of haphazardly stuffing clothes into your bag as you race to catch a flight.
Here are The Impression’s picks for the best handbags of the Spring 2025 runway season from Paris, Milan, London, and New York.
Miu Miu
Louis Vuitton
Chanel
Stella Mccartney
Victoria Beckham
The Attico
Erdem