Fall is one of the most widely beloved seasons. If you’re anything like me, as soon as Labor Day has come and gone, your mind immediately shifts to fall fashion, despite the fact that the weather outside is still hot and sticky.
One thing (among many) that I love about fall dressing is the lush textures the season brings. From super-soft knits and luscious furs (faux for me, typically) to shearling and velvet, there’s a reason why the cool weather months are dubbed cozy season.
When it comes to textures on handbags, shearling reigns supreme.
A Returning Seasonal Must
Like denim and raffia, shearling has reappeared seasonally over the last decade. While its popularity used to ebb and flow with the trend cycle, in the 2020s, it returned year after year.
Many designers have even become hyper-focused on the luxe texture, including it in winter capsule collections and introducing limited editions of fan favorites dressed in soft shearling.
Fashion is meant to be fun, and with handbag lovers increasingly embracing this notion, shearling has joined the ranks of raffia and become a seasonal staple—good news for novelty bag lovers!
Collectors who like to rotate their bags seasonally, favoring raffia in the spring and summer months, can now add a shearling bag for fall and winter, with the assurance that it will still be relevant next year.
Spotted on the Fall 2024 runway at Chanel and already popping up everywhere from Saint Laurent to Prada, shearling is here to stay. As new collections hit, we will surely see an influx of fluffy bags.
Do you think shearling has finally earned its staying power, making it worth the investment?
TIL something new — I always thought shearling spared the animal since it’s common to buzz sheep for their wool, but turns out that shearling comes with the suede (skin) attached, technically making it a fur product.
Not gonna deny that shearling looks super cute, especially when new — but if you’re not high maintenance with it it’ll mat, dirty, and lose its cute look quickly with sustained use. If I’m going to buy leather, I want to get something that I can use for a long time and fully appreciate its wear/tear/patina—and can wipe clean with a simple handtowel lol.
For me, shearling products are not worth the price because of the maintenance involved and/or quick wear of the product, and because it doesn’t fully maximize the inanimate longevity of the animal that was used in its creation.
(Trying to avoid using animal rights language here to evoke outrage or start a flame war, since I’m not a vegan. I do believe in animal products being employed thoughtfully, and with care to maximize the longevity of said materials because of the cost it took to get them. For me shearling is just not one of those materials that has that kind of ROI, but fully acknowledge that this could be a worthwhile trend to someone wealthier or less per-wear-cost-conscious than me. /caveat)
I’m not a fan of shearling for purses, but I have a coat that is going on 20 years of use and I still love it. Of course, it’s dyed black, so it doesn’t look dirty easily and a dry cleaning once a year before it goes into storage is all the maintenance it needs.
I agree that a natural color is more difficult to keep clean. Also I just don’t like my purse to be warm, especially in still-warm autumn. I can see it better in deep winter; c.f. my vintage fur muff with zippered storage to go with my inherited fur for bitterly cold days.
No, I simply have never like a shearling bag enough to buy it, not likely to either.
I think it can look really beautiful but I wouldn’t want to own any. It tends to look dirty really quickly.
it’s almost the same with suede. cute? Yes. hard to clean? also yes.