The way designers and retailers display their bags for shoppers online has been a pet peeve of mine for years. These are aesthetic-minded companies with huge budgets for marketing and digital, and still, somehow, in The Year Of Our Lord 2018, so many companies give us small, artless images that make their super-expensive subjects look drab and give their viewers little window into how a bag might look in person. Chanel might have nixed future plans to sell its bags online, but with its Spring 2018 handbag lookbook, the French accessories heavyweight has given us well over a hundred truly gorgeous images of its new bag collection.
The bags themselves don’t need much explaining: Chanel Spring 2018 had a vaguely aquatic theme, which gives us lots of mermaid greens and blues alongside similarly soft shades of pink. There are some clear and colored PVC bags, as well as tons of sequins and plenty of beading, and the combination of colors and textures provides for some straightforwardly pretty bags that will almost undoubtedly be popular. As for new shapes, there’s a fanny pack that all the Insta-famous style stars of the world are gonna love.
What really stands out to me, though—and maybe just because I look at images of bags all day—is that the photos feel as though they’re fitting of the luxury experience Chanel hopes its shoppers will have while contemplating, selecting and purchasing one of their products. They’re beautifully lit and often show the bags at a slight angle, which provides a better idea of depth and texture than the straight-on shots most brands and retailers provide. Check them all out, along with the prices of the bags in question, below.