The Chanel Gabrielle Bag Has Proved to Be The Brand’s Latest in a Long Line of Celebrity Hits

And it's grown on me, too.

When it comes to bags, designs usually don’t grow on me. If something new debuts, whatever I think about it at the beginning tends to be my opinion on it going forward. There are relatively rare exceptions to this dynamic, and the Chanel Gabrielle Bag seems to be among them. When it first debuted, it kind of bored me. It still kind of bores me, but the difference is that I’ve come to appreciate that about it. By the looks of it, celebrities are also coming around.

Much of my own newfound interest in the Gabrielle Bag is the result of seeing people—celebrities, specifically—carrying it, which gives the bag a greater opportunity to pique my interest than it has in flat stock images. That’s true of all bags, but not all of them benefit as much as the Gabrielle does from seeing it in action—some bags are more compelling on the flat page than others, and for me, my interest gap between stock images and styled photos for the Gabrielle is a lot larger than usual.

Chanel clearly understands that any bag will benefit in some way by being spotted as part of an outfit on beautiful, aspirational celebrities, so its styled plenty of its fashion show and party attendees with the bag in the months after its release. Now, though, it’s started to trickle into regular, everyday celebrity wardrobes, and in my mind, those are the most interesting examples of its appeal. Check out all the celebs we’ve spotted with the bag below.