A founder’s reflection on growth, the Blazy effect, bigger bags and the relationships behind the world’s most powerful maisons

Luxury is changing shape.

Quite literally, when it comes to handbags. After years dominated by miniature silhouettes, rigid structures and bags designed to carry little more than a phone and a lipstick, fashion is loosening its grip.

Bags are becoming larger. Softer. Slouchier. More practical.

They are being carried under the arm, folded against the body and filled with the paraphernalia of an actual life. Laptops, water bottles, diaries, chargers and everything else we apparently need to survive until lunchtime.

But the change runs deeper than the size of the season’s most desirable handbag.

Luxury itself is entering a new phase—one that feels more relaxed, more emotionally intelligent and increasingly less interested in telling us who is “supposed” to wear what.

And, from where I am standing as the founder of Élan Archive, that shift feels enormously exciting.

Growth, but not as we once knew it

For years, the luxury industry appeared almost unstoppable.

Prices rose, waiting lists grew and access became part of the theatre. The more difficult a product was to obtain, the more desirable it seemed to become.

The wider luxury market remained broadly stable during 2025, despite economic and geopolitical uncertainty, with global spending estimated at approximately €1.44 trillion. Bain & Company now forecasts a return to moderate growth during 2026, although that growth is expected to be more measured than the extraordinary post-pandemic acceleration the industry once enjoyed.

That distinction matters.

The luxury market may continue to expand, but the consumer has changed.

People are questioning relentless price increases. They are looking more closely at quality, longevity and resale value. They are comparing current collections with archival pieces and asking whether the newest bag is genuinely better—or simply more expensive.

They still want beauty. They still want craftsmanship. They still want the emotion of luxury.

But they also want a reason.

This is one of the forces driving the continued relevance of the secondary market. Pre-owned luxury allows the customer to participate in the world of the major maisons while shopping across eras, designers and discontinued silhouettes.

It also places the emphasis back on the object itself.

Not simply: What is new?

But: What is exceptional?

The return of the real bag

For several seasons, the tiny bag became a kind of fashion punchline.

It was fabulous, photogenic and almost entirely useless.

Now, the pendulum is swinging back.

Larger shoulder bags, relaxed totes, oversized top handles and soft clutches are returning to the foreground. Recent runway coverage has highlighted “super shoulder bags” and roomy, pillow-soft silhouettes, while the wider movement towards slouchy leather and suede has been building across luxury collections since 2025.

This does not mean structure is disappearing. The Birkin, Kelly, Classic Flap and Lady Dior are not about to lose their authority.

Instead, we are seeing a broader luxury wardrobe emerge.

There is room for the perfectly structured icon and the beautifully relaxed everyday bag.

There is room for the Chanel Classic Flap and the Chanel 25.

For the Hermès Kelly and a softened, lived-in Birkin.

For the architectural Lady Dior and something that folds, moves and settles naturally against the body.

Perhaps most importantly, the larger bag reflects the reality of how many of us now live.

We work from different locations. We travel more fluidly between business, leisure and content creation. Our phones have become offices and our bags have become portable lives.

A luxurious bag no longer needs to look untouched to feel valuable.

Sometimes, the most compelling thing about it is the way it becomes part of you.

The Blazy effect

It is impossible to discuss this new mood without discussing Matthieu Blazy.

Before his appointment at Chanel, Blazy had already demonstrated at Bottega Veneta that extraordinary craft did not have to feel formal or remote. He understood how to make leather appear like denim, how to turn a familiar everyday object into something technically astonishing and how to create bags that looked effortless while being anything but.

His Bottega was tactile, intelligent and quietly disruptive.

The Andiamo, the Kalimero and his reworking of intrecciato leather helped shape a version of modern luxury that felt cultivated rather than overly polished. The clothes and accessories were designed to be examined, touched and lived with.

When Chanel announced Blazy as Artistic Director of Fashion Activities in December 2024, he was given responsibility for haute couture, ready-to-wear and accessories—a rare opportunity to influence the entire visual language of one of the world’s most recognised houses.

His arrival was never going to be a minor adjustment.

The effect has been to loosen Chanel without dismantling it.

The codes remain: tweed, pearls, quilting, chain straps, camellias and the unmistakable authority of the double C.

But the attitude has shifted.

There is wit. Movement. Ease.

There is a sense that Chanel can be precious without being overly careful.

Blazy’s early Chanel collections have generated enormous interest precisely because they acknowledge the house’s past while allowing its wearer to exist in the present. One of the clearest signs of his wider influence is how quickly the styling language of his Chanel has begun filtering into the broader fashion market.

That is what I think of as the Blazy effect.

It is not merely a collection of products.

It is permission.

Permission for luxury to be intelligent without being intimidating.

Permission for heritage to feel playful.

Permission for the wearer to interpret a house rather than simply obey it.

Luxury beyond the traditional gender divide

There is another important change taking place.

The luxury customer is becoming harder to categorise—and that is a very good thing.

For decades, handbags were marketed through a rigidly gendered lens. Women were shown the icons. Men were directed towards briefcases, backpacks and messenger bags, usually in an approved palette of black, brown or navy.

Real customers have always been more interesting than that.

A Birkin 40 can be a woman’s ultimate statement bag or a man’s extraordinary work and travel companion.

A Chanel flap can be styled with a gown, denim, tailoring or a leather jacket.

A Lady Dior can feel delicate and feminine, but it can also be graphic, architectural and surprisingly subversive.

The modern luxury customer is increasingly selecting bags according to proportion, lifestyle and personal style rather than the department in which they are displayed.

I have experienced that shift myself.

I am not interested in buying a bag because a brand has decided it is technically intended for me. I am interested in the construction, the history, the leather, the silhouette and how it makes me feel when I carry it.

My Birkin 40 is not an exercise in wearing a “women’s bag.”

It is a substantial, beautifully constructed object that works with my wardrobe, my business and the way I move through the world.

That is the future of luxury: not necessarily genderless in a bland or homogenised sense, but open.

Individual.

Chosen rather than prescribed.

Blazy’s work has helped accelerate this conversation because his luxury has rarely depended on traditional ideas of masculine and feminine. It is led by material, movement, gesture and character.

The object comes first. The wearer completes it.

London, Paris and New York: the human side of the maisons

Running Élan Archive has allowed me to experience luxury from several perspectives at once.

I am a buyer, a collector, a reseller, a founder and, frequently, an observer of the extraordinary theatre that surrounds these houses.

Over the past year, I have visited boutiques and built relationships in London, Paris and New York. Those experiences have made one thing very clear:

However global the brand may be, luxury remains deeply personal.

The advertisement may bring you through the door, but it is often the Sales Advisor who shapes how you ultimately feel about the house.

Hermès: patience, timing and trust

My relationship with Hermès has taught me that the experience cannot be hurried.

There are queues, appointments, conversations, wish lists and moments when the stars appear to align—along with plenty of occasions when they absolutely do not.

In London, I have experienced the importance of continuity: getting to know the people behind the boutique, returning, being open about what I genuinely love and understanding that the relationship should never feel like a crude transaction.

I have been offered pieces that made perfect commercial sense, pieces that made no sense for me at all and one or two that required the sort of financial bravery best attempted after a very strong coffee.

There is often huge speculation surrounding how Hermès works, particularly around bag offers. My own experience has been less about discovering a secret formula and more about recognising the importance of authenticity.

The best conversations happen when I am talking about the pieces I actually enjoy.

A Mini Evelyne. A Picotin. The character of a particular leather. The beauty of a well-used Birkin. The search for a future HAC 40.

Paris has provided a different energy again.

At Faubourg Saint-Honoré, the scale and mythology of the house are almost overwhelming. You feel the history before you have even reached the leather department.

Yet even there, the experience ultimately comes down to a conversation between two people.

Sometimes the answer is yes. Often it is no. Occasionally it is “come back later,” which in Paris can feel both hopeful and magnificently vague.

Chanel: witnessing a house in transition

My relationship with Chanel has developed across three very different cities.

In London, I have spent time discussing pieces from the Métiers d’Art collections, new silhouettes and the bags that could work both personally and within the world of Élan Archive.

At Bond Street, I recently had one of those appointments that reminds you why the boutique still matters. You can see a bag online, study every photograph and know its dimensions—but the moment you hold it, the entire opinion can change.

The weight, the chain, the proportion and the way the leather reflects light simply cannot be fully understood through a screen.

Paris brings the emotional weight of Rue Cambon and the sense that Chanel seems to exist on almost every other corner. On a recent trip, I was offered beautiful pieces and then managed to run out of time before returning for one of them—a decision I have naturally replayed in my head ever since.

New York felt different again.

At the 57th Street flagship, Chanel appeared bolder and more immediate. It was there that I found a dark denim Maxi Flap from the new era—a piece that felt connected to the heritage of the house but also captured its changing energy.

Denim, scale, gold hardware and an iconic silhouette: familiar codes, rearranged.

That is precisely why the current Chanel moment matters.

It gives collectors a reason to look again.

Dior: elegance with a different rhythm

Dior offers another perspective entirely.

The house carries enormous historic weight, but the boutique experience can feel softer and more romantic than the strategic tension sometimes associated with securing particular Hermès or Chanel bags.

My own Dior experiences in London and Paris have reinforced how different each maison’s emotional language can be.

Chanel often feels like attitude.

Hermès feels like ritual.

Dior feels like romance.

The Lady Dior remains one of the most recognisable bags in the world, yet it also reveals how much scale, colour and fabrication can transform an icon. A white medium Lady Dior can feel almost ceremonial, while a smaller version in an unusual colour can become playful and contemporary.

Then there is the archival Dior world: Galliano-era pieces, saddle bags, flight bags and the unapologetic energy of early-2000s fashion.

That is where the modern luxury market becomes particularly interesting.

The customer does not have to choose between the current boutique and the archive.

They can have both.

Why the relationship still matters

In an age of online launches, resale platforms, authentication technology and instant access to global inventory, it would be easy to assume that the Sales Advisor is becoming less important.

My experience suggests the opposite.

A brilliant SA provides context.

They remember what you liked, what you rejected and what you may not yet have considered. They can introduce you to a piece you would have scrolled past online or advise you that a long-awaited bag has finally arrived.

The best relationships do not feel forced.

They grow through consistency, genuine enthusiasm and mutual respect.

They also remind us that the great luxury houses are not simply corporate machines. They are populated by people—some extraordinary, some occasionally less so—who can bring the history and craftsmanship of a maison to life.

For Élan Archive, these relationships also provide education.

Every boutique visit teaches me something about current demand, leather, construction, colour, scale and the direction in which a house is moving.

That knowledge feeds directly into how I source.

Not by chasing every trend, but by understanding which pieces are likely to remain meaningful once the noise of launch day has passed.

The future belongs to character

So where does luxury go next?

I believe the market will continue to grow, but the easy growth of constant price increases and automatic desirability has reached its limit.

The next era will require imagination.

Customers will expect craftsmanship, but also personality.

Heritage, but also relevance.

Exclusivity, but not coldness.

They will want bags that fit into their lives rather than bags around which their lives must be arranged.

That means larger silhouettes.

Softer construction.

Gender-fluid styling.

Archival references.

Pieces that can be worn rather than worshipped.

It also means the continuing rise of the educated secondary-market customer: someone who may purchase a new Chanel in London, an archival Dior in Paris and a pre-owned Hermès through a trusted specialist—all as part of the same luxury wardrobe.

For me, that is not a dilution of luxury.

It is an expansion of it.

The future of luxury will not be defined by one bag, one designer or one type of customer.

It will be shaped by the freedom to choose.

A structured icon one day. A vast, slouchy shoulder bag the next.

Something new from the boutique.

Something remarkable from the archive.

And perhaps that is the greatest effect of this new creative chapter.

Luxury is beginning to breathe again.

By Tony Hookings-Skinner, founder of Elan Archive