Your Favorite Handbags—From Birkins to Baguettes

Your Favorite Handbags—From Birkins to Baguettes—Now Come in Jewelry Form

March 08, 2021 | 05:35pm

Spring is all about accessories within accessories.

Your Favorite Handbags—From Birkins to Baguettes—Now Come in Jewelry Form

Fashion’s cyclical nature is well-established, but that’s not to say it’s not exciting. It just means that all the fun lies in the wait and see—the surprise of when and how designers will remix silhouettes and recycle colors and fabrics anew.

In the spring 2021 collections, we saw iconic accessories come to life in new and unexpected ways. For a handful of designers, this meant miniaturizing their best-selling and most coveted styles into teeny, pint-size jewelry versions.

At Jacquemus, the Le Chiquito mini bags were seemingly cast in metal and turned into earrings. At Loewe, Jonathan Anderson fashioned the label’s leather Balloon bag into a charm-size pouch worn on a necklace, and at Hermès, the same was done with the Birkin bag. Even Fendi’s famed Baguette bag and Chanel’s 2.55 came in microscopic proportions, both styled around the neck.

As Laird Borrelli-Persson, archive editor and runway jewelry trend expert explains it, “Meta went mega for spring.” She notes, “Designers translated iconic accessories and logos, like Margiela’s Tabi boot and Prada’s distinctive triangle logo plaque, into charming pendants, necklaces, and earrings that are perfect for Zoom-era waist-up dressing—and one-size-fits-all.”

Prada spring 2021; MM6 Maison Margiela spring 2021; Jacquemus spring 2021; Chanel spring 2021

Photo: Courtesy of Prada; MM6 Maison Margiela; Jacquemus; Chanel.

And if it wasn’t a designer making an accessory within an accessory, it was a miniature version of a brand’s emblem interpreted into a jewelry design. Prada’s Symbole—the instantly recognizable enameled metal logo triangle, which is stamped on everything from its legendary nylon bags to leather gloves—now festoons several items within the brand’s jewelry collection. It adorns chain necklaces, single-stud earrings, hair slides, and clips. Meanwhile, Chloé’s signature padlocks (you might recognize them from the brand’s early-aughts It bag, the Paddington) have been brought back as a pair of statement earrings and locket necklaces, complete with a key. And if you aren’t lucky enough to get your hands on a Telfar bag this spring, you could rep the brand’s trademark TC embossed logo on a pair of silver studs, instead.

From baby versions of Maison Margiela’s Tabi boot to Jacquemus’s top-handle Le Chiquito bag, shop these iconic brand signatures which were so nice, they had to be made twice.