hermes

Fashion month can be a dizzying mirage of paillettes, plumage, and prints (even more so when shrunken to fit our small screens), so when the dust has settled, as it did yesterday on the final day of Paris Fashion Week, it’s well worth revisiting style standouts that might not have received their due attention the first time around. Such is the case with Hermès’ latest understatedly chic accessory, which quietly made its launch in the French house’s Fall 2021 collection. After all, among the season’s splashier patchwork satchels and antiquity-inspired portrait purses, it didn’t scream “look at me!” but closer inspection reveals that the humble newcomer may in fact be deserving of the “best bag of the season” accolade.

With a design driven by practicality, the Hermèsway holder—which comes in black, Bordeaux, and saffron leather (jury is still out on whether or not it will be the house’s traditional calfskin or new eco-chic mushroom-based alternative)—cuts out all that’s superfluous and leaves space for just the essentials: a phone, AirPods, credit cards, and a lipstick—each with its own designated compartment. (Forget the agony of rifling through a bottomless sack only to unearth everything but the item for which you were searching.) Hanging from a thin adjustable strap, it can be worn over the shoulder, cross-body, or around the neck, like an oversized pendant—or it can simply be grasped between fingers, as it was on the season’s runway.

Consider it the apotheosis of form meeting function—not to mention a style that is just as desirable right now as in a (hopefully soon-to-come) post-pandemic era. Ultimately, whether we’re running a routine errand or eventually gallivanting around our reopened cities, who wants to be weighed down by a jam-packed tote? When we can return to a life closer to the one which we once led, I, for one, am looking forward to being so light on my feet that I can run free from day-to-night, completely unencumbered by the unnecessary.

Of course, anything worth having is worth waiting for—and wait we must (until June, to be exact). In the meantime, though, why not start stocking up on lipsticks to fill the pouch’s colour-banded sleeve? The French house just launched three new limited-edition shades of its cult refillable bullets, including a fiery bougainvillea that will make taking off our masks all the sweeter.

hermes