This week, we look at the popularity of luxury bag charms as customers seek personalized products, plus how NYFW brand Jonathan Cohen is using retail partners to benefit his company, and what it takes to become a luxury super shopper.
In recent years, the trend for luxury bag accessories has gained momentum as playful personalization has become popular with younger consumers.
The trend has its roots in Asia, specifically Japan, where the concept of “kawaii” and playful fashion accessories have long been a staple.
Rachel Steed Middleton, founder of String Ting, a four-year-old cell phone chain and accessories brand, said bag charms now account for 63 percent of her business. String Ting’s bag charms feature luxury materials such as Miyuki glass beads and Swarovski crystals. “Making something cute and fun is basically a must at the moment,” she said.
Bag charms started to gain popularity outside Asia with the K-Pop boom, and quickly appeared on runway collections and then went mainstream. For example, Miu Miu’s boxy handbags in Spring 2024 were adorned with silk pouches and luggage tags; Balenciaga’s Rodeo bag in Spring 2024 featured a giant key and lock on the handle; and Coach’s oversized Fall 2024 tote bag was adorned with kitschy New York and Statue of Liberty keychains jingling from the strap, and is almost sold out. And at the Marvel movie premiere in New York, Gigi Hadid added a playful twist to her Miu Miu Arkady bag with a Deadpool bag charm.
Gio Zaccariello, Coach’s senior vice president of global visual experience, said bag charms have become a tool for customization and self-expression. Coach will also introduce shoe charms in its spring 2025 collection, as shown on the runway on Monday.
According to Zaccariello, personalization isn’t just a feature; it’s a way for consumers to emotionally connect with a product and feel special.
Luxury bag personalization has become a hot topic on social media. In May 2024, Amelia Liana, a British influencer with over 500,000 followers on TikTok, posted a video of herself personalizing an Hermès Birkin bag with bag charms. The video has been viewed more than 7 million times.
“People who buy luxury bags are looking for ways to make them their own,” says Steed Middleton. “The Birkin is already a statement piece, but adding charms adds personality — it’s a subtle way of saying, ‘This is mine.'”
Luxury brands are also taking notice: Gucci, Prada and Loewe are all currently selling bag charms, while Hermes’s £530 ($650) Rodeo Pegase charm, which was launched about a year ago, has quickly become popular; a Reddit thread has been dedicated to customers looking for the unique color scheme.
Jonathan Cohen’s Strategic Merchandising Mix
Jonathan Cohen, a New York Fashion Week regular, has diversified distribution to achieve closer clientele, scale and evolution.
Since 2011, the brand’s designer Jonathan Cohen and co-founder and business partner Sarah Leff have focused on selling in boutiques across the country to stay closer to their customers, including McMullen Boutiques in San Francisco.
“We launched the brand with the intention of selling in specialty stores,” Leff said. “That was our marketing strategy: to engage directly with the customer and the stores. We targeted the best stores in the U.S. and built relationships to grow globally.”
“When we go into a specialty store, we know who our customers are and what they buy, and they’ve been doing business with us for 10 years in many cases,” Cohen said. “Specialty stores are smaller, they have less shelf space, so customers come in looking for specific products.”
In 2022, the Jonathan Cohen brand expanded into Neiman Marcus, “which opened up new customer base and helped them understand the full scope of our collection,” Leff said.
“We waited a while to get our production up and figure out that side of things before we started working with Neiman Marcus,” Cohen said. “If we’d worked with them from day one, I don’t know if we would have been successful.”
The brand also began selling on Amazon. “During the pandemic, we partnered with Amazon through Vogue’s Common Threads[initiative]to sell our excess inventory,” Leff said. The partnership allowed the brand to introduce sizing up to a size 36. “Amazon has invested in helping us expand our sizing,” Cohen said, calling it a rare and valuable move.
Stella McCartney and PETA stage nude protest against leather at NYFW
On September 10, Stella McCartney and animal rights group PETA staged a protest at New York Fashion Week to promote the brand’s Winter 2024 campaign. Titled “IT’S ABOUT FUCKING TIME,” the campaign calls for an end to the use of leather in fashion.
Nudity activists, including actress Kayleigh Cowan, attended the event, holding signs that read, “No leather whatsoever.” Leather has generally been a profit driver for brands, but its use is on the rise as more brands turn to accessories.
“We’re proving that you can run a luxury fashion house without killing any animals,” McCartney said. The “IT’S ABOUT FUCKING TIME” slogan was inspired by a custom tank top the designer wore to Sir Paul McCartney’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999.
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