‘A form of anti-status status’ – how much would you pay for a plain tote bag?

The ubiquitous carrier has been given a four-figure makeover. But why has an everyday bag associated with running errands and US supermarkets become so aspirational?

Don’t get Fashion Statement delivered to your inbox? Sign up here

If you were in the blessed position of having £500 to spend on a bag, what would you look for? Would it be made of cotton? A nice light shade bound to sully quickly, like “paper white” or ecru? Would you want something that looks a lot like those ubiquitous totes sold by a certain US supermarket chain for a couple of dollars?

No, thought not. But there are plenty of options if you do. Phoebe Philo, former Celine designer and quiet luxury pioneer, offers a white canvas shopper, made entirely from cotton except for the silver brass hardware of its internal zipped pocket, for £450. Luxury Swedish brand Toteme’s “effortless tote bag” is made from organic cotton canvas and is available in dark brown, red or classic ecru. It goes for £510. Tom Ford’s version, at £1,600, differentiates itself a little, with a body made exclusively of cotton canvas but trims and handles from calfskin. Prada’s, which features leather details and metal hardware, could be yours for over £2,000.

These are the kinds of totes that have become a relatively inexpensive staple, thanks to Trader Joe’s, LL Bean, J Crew, museum gift shops and countless other brands stocking this pleasingly simple and in some ways hyper-practical bag. They have become a common sight on the shoulders of people doing their vegetable shopping or in need of a second bag for gym clobber on an office day.

So why have they been co-opted by luxury fashion? For Tiffany Hill, the founder of Trend Suite, “the appeal is partly that the canvas tote has become a form of anti-status status”. The “strange impracticality of their pale colour” is, she says, part and parcel of it. “A cream or ecru tote that costs hundreds, or even thousands, and is inevitably going to mark, almost makes practicality beside the point. You are buying into an aesthetic and a lifestyle rather than simply buying something to carry your belongings in.”

These ecru canvas totes are two a penny on the American east coast. Muffy Aldrich is the editor of the blog Salt Water New England: The Thing Before Preppy, where she offers tips on styling her LL Bean tote. (She has a couple of dozen of them in ecru.) If she includes those with different trim/handle colours, “it is embarrassingly in the triple digits”. She has bags in “medium, large, and extra-large. Occasionally the small. Long handles and short. Zip-top and open-top.”

Perfect for going from Nantucket beach to lobster roll shack, Aldrich thinks “they may be the single most iconic East Coast Preppy item today. And fittingly, it is almost impossible to walk through any coastal New England town without running into one.” In large part that’s down to design. For Aldrich, their handles are a case in point: “The straps wrap completely around the bag, instead of just being sewn on at the top, so the bags feel secure when you carry them.”

The fact they are so symbolic of Martha’s Vineyard is very much the point. “The canvas tote already carries this very specific visual language of boats, summer houses, farmers’ markets, weekends away and slightly old-fashioned American affluence,” says Hill. “Luxury brands don’t have to invent that mythology – they can borrow it.”

Where totes were once a symbol of sustainability in an era of disposable plastic bags, they have since become part of the overproduction problem – according to the UN Environment programme, the average cotton tote needs to be used between 50 and 150 times to offset its production. In reality, less than 10% of totes are used more than three times. So there has for some time been an appetite for tote bags that do more than clog up your cupboards, which explains the advent of the “forever tote”.

And these iterations are, apart from perhaps their colour, extremely practical. Boxy in shape, Anna Wintour famously carried “the book” (a dummy copy of the upcoming Vogue) in a monogrammed number. In the final episode of the TV show Furious, which depicts the sordid world of an Epstein-esque billionaire, his daughter reaches for hers when she needs a bag in a rush that’s sturdy enough to stash away all the drives harbouring her father’s collection of child sexual abuse images. It’s a smart piece of costume design from Claire Parkinson, who clearly understands that the character is exactly the type to have such a tote to hand.

What we could call “the Erewhon effect” may also be at play. Erewhon, a high-end LA supermarket frequented by the Kardashians and TikTokers – AKA a $19 powdered-beef-organ and unpasteurised milk smoothie kind of place – sells ecru totes. Emblazoned with “Erewhon”, they are about £74 and, in certain circles, aspirational.

“Consumers have become very fluent in these quieter lifestyle codes: the right grocery shop, coffee cup, baseball cap or canvas tote can communicate taste and belonging just as effectively as an obvious designer logo,” says Hill. “The status is increasingly in recognising the reference rather than displaying the price.” Even if the reference is a supermarket, albeit an extremely fancy one; fashion has always appropriated the everyday.

Marc Jacobs could be seen as playing an early role in this strange new world of expensive totes. In 2019, he launched The Tote Bag collection. The heavily branded canvas bags were hundreds rather than thousands of pounds, and marketed with the pithy slogan “No more Birkins, only tote bags”, they became a mainstream classic.

“The fashion houses are riffing,” says Aldrich. “They can add an inner pocket or outer pocket, or different handle lengths. A logo, of course. Zhoosh up the proportions.” But pleasingly for anyone who owns a similar bag that cost them a tenner: “fashion houses are not going to make an appreciably ‘better’ canvas tote than the original, because it is already perfect for what it is.”

In fact, Aldrich suggests, these new luxury iterations are antithetical to the tote’s allure. “When we get to a point where a tote bag is so precious – so expensive and made of softer materials – that we are afraid to toss it from boat to boat or let it get covered in sand … we get very close to losing what made it iconic to begin with.” Paradoxically, then, “it becomes temporary. Disposable. And that may be exactly what the fashion houses are counting on as the next season rolls around.”