For many years, I have often felt overlooked.
Not for the usual tragic reasons, you understand. Not because I have been denied a table in a restaurant, ignored by a waiter, or left out of a WhatsApp group involving horse racing, Burgundy, or both. No, I have felt overlooked by the makers of some of the best luggage and handbag manufacturers in the world.
I value ladies’ handbags on a regular basis that can only be swooned over and marvelled at. Hermès, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Fendi: they arrive in tissue, dust bags, boxes and occasionally with the sort of documentation one might more reasonably expect to accompany a 1960s racing car. Some are astonishing – some are so crisp, so untouched, so amazingly constructed, that one almost wants to take a few minutes before handling them.
And yet, for the gentleman? Historically, we have been fobbed off with a briefcase, a ‘gym bag’, a laptop case, or that battered weekend holdall which has seen more stag weekends than the entire Hangover film franchise. I have, on more than one occasion, looked at a black Birkin and thought, “How could I get away with that?” The answer, 99% of the time, has been immediate and brutal: “No. Don’t even think about it.”
Happily, there are now better people than me.
I should declare an interest. I have my own selection of manbags, and I am very fond of them. None of them trying to be a Birkin. They are doing something far more British: being useful, looking good without shouting, and quietly absorbing the daily detritus of modern life – keys, spectacles, phone, charger, notebook, loupe, tape measure, receipts of uncertain importance; all are contained with a dignity that trouser pockets simply cannot provide. A good manbag is not an affectation. It is a small act of universal civilisation.
That said, the World Cup has moved the gentleman’s bag from civilised convenience to full-blown theatre. PurseBlog’s World Cup bag report (yes, I read these things) observed that the focus has shifted beyond women’s handbags and into men’s sport, with footballers carrying not only large travel bags – but messenger bags, pouches and highly coveted pieces. The airport arrival has become the new runway.
Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal) has kept things relatively simple with a Gucci Mega Web Trademark large duffle bag which Gucci UK currently lists at £3,090 and probably sounds a lot better in Italian. It is handsome, sporty and practical – very Ronaldo, in the sense that even the luggage appears to have a staff, and a stylist. Fairly universal in availability, it is one to purchase for use, rather than investment.
Hermès, of course, is where things become dangerous. Michael Olise (France) was reported carrying a black Hermès Birkin 40, with the current retail equivalent at about £15,350. Erling Haaland (Norway) went further still, arriving with the Hermès HAC Birkin 50 “Endless Road” in Gris Perle. There is no normal public UK retail price for that piece in the way one might quote a Gucci holdall. It is a rare, limited Hermès travel bag, and Journal des Femmes reported that the model now trades on the secondary market at about £34,400.
Hermès as a wider category remains extraordinarily strong: Rebag’s 2025 Clair Report placed Hermès at 138% value retention, a useful reminder that with the right model, leather, colour, size and condition, retail or insurance value may differ a dramatic amount.
France, unsurprisingly, arrived as though the Vogue staff had chosen the baggage collection. Ousmane Dembélé was seen with an Hermès HAC, Rayan Cherki with another historic Hermès Haut à Courroies, and Marcus Thuram’s green Chanel x Pharrell XXL Flap Bag is a different animal altogether: a discontinued investment piece rather than a current boutique item, with recent fashion coverage placing comparable resale levels around £12,000 – so it’s nice to see that some of the items are reused, which isn’t always the case!
Louis Vuitton supplied the dependable theatre of travel. These are magnificent objects and excellent travel companions, and dare I say it – actually good value, but unless one is dealing with a scarce collaboration or discontinued special order, they are not generally the grey-market fireworks of Hermès. Maxence Lacroix’sChanel x Pharrell XXL Flap Bagr, currently £4,370, belongs in the same category: highly desirable, beautifully made, but not necessarily an above-retail speculation.
Unfortunately, the suggested rumour that Scotland have arrived with bespoke Chanel Sporrans, has proven to be untrue.
Nor is this only football. Actor Jacob Elordi has become almost a patron saint of the modern male handbag, having been photographed with a Bottega Veneta Andiamo Medium in Fondant, at about £3,700.
Singer Harry Styles helped normalise the Gucci manbag moment with the Gucci Jackie; a current black leather medium Jackie 1961 is £2,820, though many standard Jackie examples trade below retail on resale platforms, proving that style and investment are not always the same thing.
Rapper A$AP Rocky (never knowingly under-accessorised) was seen with a Bottega Veneta Large Cabat, about £8,250.
When valuing designer bags, women’s or men’s – Condition, receipts, box, dust bag, hardware, colour, leather, year, repairs and, where relevant, exotic-skin documentation all count. A Chanel tote carried by a footballer is exciting; a properly documented Chanel tote in the correct condition is valuable.
So yes, the gentleman’s bag is having its moment. Quite right too. Pockets were never designed for phones, keys, sunglasses, chargers, wallets, or passports. The manbag is not a surrender of masculinity. It is a triumph of organisation.
The next time I look at a black Birkin and wonder whether I could get away with it, I shall think of Haaland, Thuram, Elordi and Styles, and then think better of it…..possibly.
