“The only true currency in this bankrupt world,” says a young Philip Seymour Hoffman in Cameron Crowe’s semi-autobiographical ode to rock n’ roll, Almost Famous, “is what you share with someone else when you’re uncool.”
You see, dear reader, as a vague excuse to qualify my obsessive movie-watching tendencies as “research”, I proceeded to rewatch Crowe’s seminal, coming-of-age cult classic over the course of the last weekend.
But while it’s known more so for its tender narrative and sun-drenched So-Cal soundtrack (I mean, who among us hasn’t belted out “Hold me closer, tiny dancer” on one of those never-ending road trips, right?), front and center to the film’s mythmaking stands Penny Lane, musical muse and self-titled ‘Band-Aid’ (“We are here because of the music, we inspire the music.”)
With her cascading curls, dumpy denim, and that deliciously shaggy shearling coat, few fashion figures in film have managed to etch themselves into our collective cultural psyches like Ms. Lane – played by Kate Hudson and styled by Betsy Heimann after the real-life rock-star band-aids of the Sixties and Seventies, such as Pamela Des Barres and Anita Pallenberg.
To quote Julia Fox from an episode of the Call Her Daddy podcast, “You’re either born a muse or you’re not.” And Ms. Lane is a born muse.
And perhaps one of the closest of Ms. Lane’s modern-day counterparts to exist is Alexa Chung – journalist, former MTV-host, model, and – obviously – muse. So, of course, when Ms. Chung decided to unearth her ancient Mulberry Roxanne and rally for its return, the rest of the fashion world took notice.
The Allure of Alexa
Like Bella Hadid, yet another strangely prescient and extraordinarily sentient fashion barometer who harbingered the comeback of the Fendi Spy way back in 2022, it was in 2023 that Alexa took to her Instagram stories with a photo of her well-worn, oak-toned Mulberry Roxanne with the caption “Thur she blows. Just found my ancient bag avec actual guitar strap circa 2006.”
And true to her words, an embroidered red, white, and royal blue guitar strap clipped onto the dog-eared d-rings of her seasoned satchel – adding to the grunginess and the Penny Lane of it all.
But Chung has remained a Mulberry girl through and through.
In fact, identifying as “broadcaster” and “geriatric ‘it’ girl,” back when “creator” and “influencer” were not yet real jobs, Ms. Chung’s career started out as a model in London, from where her charisma, quirks, penchant for hotpants, peter pan collars, and odd denim overalls, and an overall refusal to take herself seriously, rapidly propelled her onto the television scene as a presenter and host. Which, of course, made her endlessly aspirational.
As Jessica Teta wrote for the NYT, “In paparazzi photos, holding hands with her indie rock boyfriend, she wore peacoats over minidresses. So we — women around her age, give or take five years — wore peacoats over minidresses, too.”
And on her arm was a steady rotation of Mulberry – the Bayswater, the Bryn, and the classic men’s Elkington briefcase, the latter of which inspired the label to introduce the Alexa, one of its all-time bestselling bags.
“It was one of those things where you see the first proto, and you go: ‘Oooh…’ I call it a nose twitcher. I see [a prototype] and my nose twitches, because I can smell the money,” recalls designer Emma Hill.
But where the Alexa channels Chung’s “low-key, deshabillé, coolest-girl-in-sixth-form sensibility,” the Roxanne actually helped hone it.
But First, There Was the Roxanne
Launched in October 2003, and fashioned after those old leather school satchels, the Roxanne is rabidly utilitarian with its plethora of pockets, 62 exposed rivets, five entertainingly useless buckles, six rings that hoop its various straps, entirely logo-less demeanor (“unless you knew where to look, in the tiny indented flecks that speckled into the shape of the mulberry tree on every one of those rivets”) and weighing – when empty – 1.4kg.
And upon launch, as The Guardian opines, “the Roxanne was unlike anything else on sale at the time.” Features editor of Vogue, Harriet Quick, notes in the same interview that the Roxanne – or Roxy, as dearly dubbed by fans – was “a reaction to the logo mania of the first part of the noughties – canvas [bags] that had to have a logo all over, leather that was embossed”. It was also, Quick adds, “when the trend for substantial hardware really kicked off”.
So really, your favorite Chloé Paddingtons and Marc Jacobs Stams (both of which, coincidentally, are now enjoying a resurgence) all came about thanks to the Roxanne, and its “new kind of signature with the hardware itself”.
“The clasp of the Paddington is not only the bag’s signature,” continues the piece, “but a wry nod to its expense (around £790 for a tote). This bag costs so much, it seems to say, I need to keep it under lock and key.”
But unlike the Saddles and Baguettes of yore, one needn’t be precious with the Roxanne and its successors. “Gritty zips bare giant teeth. Chains rattle. Fobs, tabs and tassels shake. These are the 4x4s of the handbag world.”
Naturally, Kate Moss – herself a Pallenberg-successor, rock ’n’ roll party girl, and girlfriend to The Libertines frontman Pete Doherty – was among the first to order the Roxanne. And Chung went on to chime in to British Vogue, “Mulberry was the first handbag I bought myself with the first pay cheque I made as a model, and so it has always been a hugely significant brand to me.”
Gear Up for the Grown-Up Roxanne
But while the original was a staple on the likes of Moss, Chung and co., serving as the trusty sidekick to the latter’s eclectically quirky coastal-grandmother-at-a-VIP-dinner look (or, as paired in that same Instagram story, with JW Anderson’s AW23 frog mules, Vogue’s “ugliest” shoe of the year), the revived Roxanne family – consisting of the original and small sizes as well as shoulder bag silhouettes – are sleeker and less hardware-heavy.
Fashioned out of sustainably sourced leather and expertly crafted with 44 individual hand-cut pieces, the Roxanne 2.0 was unveiled last month with a new campaign starring Cynthia Erivo and shot by Tim Walker.
Mulberry’s creative studio director, Henrietta Gallina, rationalizes the design decision to Vogue: “Instead of simply reissuing it, we reimagined it for contemporary lives – introducing four new iterations, each taking the design codes of the original and updating it.” The “surreal and playful” campaign, we’re told, “reflects the duality of the Mulberry Spirit”.
At the same time, Chung’s at-once incredibly relatable and unimaginably aspirational brand of cool has now aged.
The demographic that once comprised “young women who prided themselves in being well-read and liking alternative music; in wearing thrifted Peter Pan collared tops to gritty clubs; in having Jane Birkin bangs and knowing who Jane Birkin was” has now been replaced by young women who are content with merely tagging the Chungs and Mosses of the day on Indie Sleaze Instagram accounts and Pinterest moodboards while sipping on their Erewhon smoothies and lounging in Alo Yoga sets.
So, it’s only fair that the modernized Roxanne is fit for the modern day—swathed in a stealth-wealthified silhouette.
Of course, casting Erivo – the literal Wicked witch – in the campaign is an attempt to retain some of that original, on-the-nose cheek that the Roxanne and its patrons are known for. “This ain’t no princess purse,” it appears to say.
But at the end of the day, going by the Almost Famous analogy, if the OG Roxanne was Penny Lane, then the updated Roxanne feels like Elaine Miller, the mom, chastising the Stillwater lead, Russell, with a quote from Goethe: “Be bold, and mighty forces will come to your aid.”
Sure, it’s bold – but is it bold enough?
Featured image via @mulberryengland
