When the New Yorker takes on handbags, the storied publication is sure to produce some interesting bits of wisdom from around the fashion world. The magazine’s profile of Bottega Veneta’s Thomas Maier is only available subscribers (both online and old skool), but a few choice words on the designer’s success at the once nearly-dead Italian brand have leaked out to us plebes, and they’re mostly about the role of the handbag in Maier’s oeuvre.
What I found most interesting, though, was Tom Ford’s declaration concerning the inherent it-ness of the anti-it bag trend. We’ve talked about the sea change in bag trends in these parts before, but It Bag fatigue has created It Bags of its own, whose it-ness isn’t negated by the fact that they aren’t logo-covered or overwrought. Maier’s handmade Bottega Veneta Cabat totes are credited by the magazine with pulling the anti-trend into mainstream favor, and they certainly had a hand in it, but I’m of the personal belief that Phoebe Philo’s sleek, minimal bags for Celine are what broke the trend to its current, wide audience. And that entire thought just proves that Ford is right, as he so often is – people who love It Bags and those who hate them have far more in common than either group would probably like to admit. Where do you sit on this debate, which is clearly the most important issue of our times? I mean, it’s getting coverage in the New Yorker, y’all.
