Can We Please Normalize Bed-Rotting With Our Bags?

“Thanks for the offer; I hope to get back to you soon.”

I type out the reply – knowing full well that “soon” might as well equate to “never” – and slam the laptop shut. It’s the closest I’d ever get to chucking the janky thing in the sea, hoping to escape the inescapable torrent of emails, texts, spam calls, overdue bills, social media alerts, unpaid internships, and unfinished PowerPoints.

Because I’d finally had enough.

At least, enough for that transient stretch of time between Christmas and New Year’s when your brain feels like mush, the hours don’t quite seem to compute, and you have a hard time remembering what day of the week it is.

And I don’t know about you, but if the general trend cycle this year felt more deranged than usual, my personal planetary developments for 2024 have been absolutely berserk. I’ve been pedaling dramatically between jobs and cities, love and loss, heartbreaking lows, and exhilarating fits of euphoria.

I’d been delirious to discover my own personal style, North Star in one Ms. Bella Hadid, only to realize that my style, ultimately, wasn’t so personal. I’d built my handbag collection up to what I’d presumed was purse peace, only to leave most of it behind back home and, somehow, find myself at peace yet again.

But the one thing I hadn’t been was rested.

So, as the truly turbulent year that’s 2024 comes to a close, the only thing I now look forward to is cozying up in bed, wired EarPods in, rest of the world out, up close and personal with what I love the most – my purses!

The Little Engine That Just Couldn’t Anymore

As it turns out, I’m not the only one who’s trying to coalesce into the mattress like a decomposing carcass. Or like Margaret Qualley and Demi Moore in The Substance.

Presciently christened “bed-rotting,” the term, with over 2 billion views on TikTok, refers to staying in bed for hours on end by choice – until you finally emerge from the covers reeking and rancid (and, hence, rotting). You might be tempted to get some skincare done, have a side of snacking, or even do a spot of scrolling while you’re at it. But like seasoned bed-rotters will tell you, all you really need is a snug duvet.

As gross as it sounds, however, bed-rotting is an entirely legitimate form of self-care championed by the Gen-Z and Gen-Alpha (and, ironically enough, absolutely abhorred by millennials, the self-proclaimed “generation burnout”) in response to feeling overwrought and overwhelmed by the state of the affairs.

And what a state said affairs are in (!), what with the increasingly greige fever dream that is the Kardashians (they even have Pantone convinced!), that never-ending Taylor Swift Tour, the onslaught of Luigi Mangione’s perfectly-lit mugshots from prison (not to mention, its meta-commentary on capitalism), and really, a collective sense of debilitating depletion that the fashion forecasting firm, WGSN, dubs The Great Exhaustion of 2026. So, if you’ve been wearing your busyness and burnout like a badge of honor, bed-rotting is our way of saying: we see you.

Our Year of Rest and Relaxation

“The politics, the lies, and false narratives finally got me! You win … I’m out,” wrote Law Roach as he quit celebrity styling in March 2023, at the pinnacle of his career.

“It is a decision, based entirely and equally on my desire to focus on other interests in my life, including my own brand, and the passions that drive me outside of my work,” announces Raf Simons while making a surprise departure from Dior in 2015.

“I don’t want to be part of this system. I just want the beauty and the dream,” admits Renzo Rosso, President of Only the Brave, in a WWD profile the same year.

Yet, in that exact profile, Karl Lagerfeld famously declares, “If you are not a good bullfighter, don’t enter the arena. Everybody is allowed to show a collection. There may be too many – that is not my problem. Fashion is a sport now: You have to run.”

He also famously died of prostate cancer just four years later.

My point is that this Great Exhaustion has been years, perhaps decades, in the making, and the signs were there all along. And if all the dissimilitudes and discrepancies, the unionizing, the hiring, and the firing weren’t enough, we’re also subjected to endless endorsements by viral whatstheirnames whose countersigned commodities (most likely gifts in the first place) will eventually end up in a The RealReal pickup.

Consumers, therefore, are turning to TikTok for advice on how not to do exactly that. “Self-care”, after all, is projected to be a top trend in 2025, according to brands analyst Ellyn Briggs. Makes you wonder if they’re in on the joke here.

A Petition for Pajama-Core

Clearly, if we’re going to be making a trend out of this whole resting thing (at least, this is one I can get behind), we might as well do it in style. WGSN is already on top of it, reporting that the top beauty trend of 2025 will be “therapeutic laziness,” while in fashion, “day-jamas” (pajamas as ready-to-wear) are going to be the next it-thing.

And in the face of a culture that worships work ethic and prizes productivity, there’s something gloriously defiant about simply lying in bed watching pensioners doing the Apple dance. It also feels strangely natural: “Biologically speaking, we aren’t designed to go, go, go,” says Bonnie Zucker, PsyD, author of A Perfectionist’s Guide to Not Being Perfect. Rest isn’t a choice; it’s a physical necessity.

As handbag lovers, therefore, it’s only fair that we do the resting with our handbags – the heavy-hitter workhorses, the sparkly micro-numbers destined for dates, dance-floors and maybe a bit of that inevitable, unnamable spew, or those killer ladylike top-handles that won’t ever ruin – and in fact, only elevate – our outfits.

Because through thick and thin, our purses have remained a reassuring presence, tireless pack ponies, much-adored arm candies, style statements, and life-enablers (at least, as far as the purse-obsessive is concerned). And they’re sure to give you that much-needed spring in the step, even when you’re just going through life in glorified pajamas.

So, as we now recede into the recesses of our receptacles, hoping for the proverbial fashion flame to burn out before it can burn bright once again, all we can hope for is perhaps a slightly less turbulent new year ahead for ourselves.

Except for Matthieu Blazy. That man’s sure about to have a hell of a year.

Featured image via TPF member abg12