Come September, some of us never shake off that new school year feeling and, appropriately, this season’s most interesting new handbags look straight out of a geometry class. There’s Balenciaga’s triangle duffle, Mulberry’s circular Trunk bags and Loewe’s pyramid-ish Hammock style, which looks like a chunk of Toblerone crafted in leather. In a good way.
Eleanor Robinson, Selfridges director of accessories, believes that the recent enthusiasm for these shape-shifters “started with Jonathan Anderson’s game-changing cuboid Puzzle bag for Loewe, which captured the idea of being different and challenging and is now already considered timeless”. Loewe’s Hammock bag is similarly set to become a classic, as its quirky shape is combined with functionality, just like Issey Miyake’s enduring origami-inspired Bao Bao bag.
Designer Roksanda Ilincic also puts an emphasis on geometric forms. If the artist Kazimir Malevich made bags, he might have come up with her Aplin pouch, which combines a hot pink rectangular zipped compartment with a jaunty buff-coloured circle perched on the side, while other creations incorporate sculptural curved metal handles and squiggly leather straps. Ilincic says, “I am very connected to architecture and art, all things graphic. I wanted to draw an expression from something very geometric and very different. The bag market is so saturated, so you really need to create something to grab someone’s attention. It means you need to think differently and outside of the box.”