What Explains the Hype Behind the Mini Kelly?

Turns out, I stand corrected.

No really, because the last time I’d waxed lyrical about some incredibly-dressed stranger on the street that makes your heart go all aflutter and your brain melt to butter – and I quote, “It’s a fleeting feeling – you’re unsure if you’re in love with them, want to be them (or embody them, if only in part), or want to be more like yourself around them” – I was fairly confident that such strangers don’t exist beyond the realm of the occasional Carolyn-Bessette editorial.

Until, of course, I happened upon one myself.

Or rather, he was simply too hard to miss; for even when you’re absentmindedly casting a glance at his general direction, you’re bound to be hooked. Even when he’s in a too-tight denim jacket buttoned all the way to the top in the hapless hope of beating the cold, or a well-worn black jumper that sparkles ever-so-slightly as it catches the sun, or simply low-slung lightwash jeans that flare louchely at the leg, there’s something magnetic about his entire being.

So you do what one does: you find out where these exotic specimens are headed, and you follow them around, to the end of the earth and back if need be.

On some level, the Hermès Mini Kelly captures that same essence of longing. For even when you’re simply trudging through life slowly disintegrating from the weight of a bacteria-slathered bag that’s disintegrating in itself, this marvel of a miniature makes you dream of a life not saddled with the weight of reality.

It’s that incredibly-dressed stranger on the street, incarnated as a purse. The one we long to be, and the one we long to possess, hoping that, owning one would lend some element of aspiration to our otherwise banal plebeian lives.

But how has the Mini Kelly come to garner such status in the first place?

The Princess and the Purse

Now it goes without saying that the Mini Kelly wouldn’t exist had the original Kelly not entered the scene. And like how its petite-sœur is now making waves among the fashion set, the OG has had its own deliciously salacious origins.

A scaled down adaptation of the Haut à Courroies (the bag du jour for all your equestrian accessories), the Kelly, initially the Petit Sac à Courroies, then the Sac à Dépêches, was a rejection of the impractically embellished handbags of the ‘30s – not to mention much larger – symbolizing a broader societal shift that afforded the woman carrying it the liberty of simply schlepping more stuff.

But while the bag had hit H stores as early as 1935, its real success must be attributed to Edith Head, costume designer to Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief starring Grace Kelly. And the rest, dear reader, is history.

Now, as counterintuitive as it sounds to its originally intended purpose, Hermès dropped the Mini Kelly mere months after that infamous photo dropped of Madame Kelly hiding her baby bump with her ludicrously capacious number. And while only 20cm in width, it retained the OG’s distinctly trapezoidal shape and sangle closure, aided by a mid-length shoulder strap, and as of 1980, the singular round top-handle popularly known as the “bracelet handle.”

With the Kelly, a star had been born, and here was yet another in the making.

Yes, There’s More Than One Mini Kelly

Throughout its long, illustrious history, the Kelly has evolved, spawning smaller (and sometimes bigger) Kelly spawns in its wake. From a bejeweled micro-mini, the Kelly Danse bumbag, the Kelly Ado backpack, and a wooden Kelly (imaginatively titled the Kellywood), to travel versions of positively ginormous proportions, there’s quite literally a Kelly for every occasion.

But the Mini Kelly has also undergone its own unique evolutionary episode, remaining in production unitl its discontinuation in 2009, and then resurfacing in 2016 at the height of the mini-movement as the Mini Kelly II. Furthermore, in 1990, an ultra-rare Retourne style was released that still has collectors and connoisseurs alike scrambling, while an even smaller, 15cm micro-Kelly was designed for the seasons between 1984-1985 and 1991-1992.

Yet, perhaps the most popular reimagining of the Mini Kelly remains the Kelly Pochette, the creative brainchild of Creative Director Jean Paul Gaultier for his debut Autumn/Winter 2004 collection, adapting the silhouette of the mothership Kelly in clutch form. And speaking of clutches, there’s also the Kelly Cut (a descendant of the discontinued Kelly Longue), the elongated, flatter (and some might say, more proper) clutch from the Kelly repertoire.

And finally, there’s the unmistakable, anthropomorphic Kelly Doll, or the Quelle Idole, in a petit 16 cm by 12 cm frame with a turnlock for a nose, movable sangle arms, feet, and an animated face, often released to coincide with (and commemorate) new Hermès boutique openings across the world.

In League With the Bigwigs

Of course, the Kelly remains one of Hermès’ most notable offerings and a best-selling quota bag, not to mention, a hotly anticipated h0ly grail, complete with its own plotline in the hit 2003 Kate Hudson and Naomi Watts film, Le Divorce.

But that isn’t to say that its Mini variant is far behind – some might even go onto attribute greater popularity to it than the OG! Elizabeth Taylor, for instance, reportedly owned no less than three Mini Kellys, even back when its smaller stature hadn’t yet caught fashion folks in a chokehold.

Plus, now that we’ve had the wave of micro-minis inundate the influencer-verse, whether you care to admit or not, the Mini Kelly has colored us influenced and spoilt for choice, made available in everything from Chèvre Mysore, Box and Epsom, to eye-watering exotics, “Teddy” shearling and even the infamous Picnic rendition!

Watching trendy trendsetters on TikTok struggle to fit their phones into their petit purses is almost a guilty pleasure of sorts, akin to watching toys in a dollhouse (fittingly enough, baby Stormi Jenner was spotted sporting her mom’s K20 to the collective delight and horror of the Internets).

Because at the end of the day, it’s the size of the Mini Kelly that makes it so visually striking, and in turn, so appealing. Even as the wider wave of tiny bags have subsided, there’s a flex to owning the eye-wateringly priced miniature number, almost as flagrant of a display of wealth as Paris Hilton’s “Stop Being Poor” t-shirt, fitting things into it an art form that implies you have others at you beck and call to take care of your worldly needs.

It’s effortlessness embodied in compact form, and therein lies its magnetism, much like that incredibly-attired, mysteriously magnetic gentleman of mine.