Mariyam Meeran The Poppins bag isn’t really about the bag. It’s about being useful becoming fashionable again.
For years the mood was aspirational in a foggy sort of way. Buy the thing that signals the life you want. The big tote. The designer water bottle. The gym membership used twice. Aesthetics first, function trailing somewhere behind, if it showed up at all. Then everyone got a bit skint and a bit knackered, and the whole performance started to feel like extra homework.
Now the flex is simpler. Does it actually work? Does the coat have pockets you can get a hand into? Will the shoes survive the walk to the station? Can you fit a phone, keys and a card in the bag without playing Tetris at the till? Small questions. Somehow they’re the only ones anyone cares about.
You can see it everywhere. Oversized coats with proper pockets. Flats back on the menu. Bags with straps that don’t saw through your shoulder. Kitchen kit that gets used instead of displayed. Even the “what’s in my bag” videos have changed. Less perfume, more paracetamol, a charger, a folding bag, a snack for later. People want to see the receipts of a life that functions.
And it isn’t anti pretty. That’s the bit people get wrong. Practicality isn’t surrender. Nice and useful stopped being opposites somewhere along the way. A well made thing that does its job is the aesthetic now. The pleasure is in the small stuff. Reaching for something and it being there. Not improvising a bag out of a carrier bag. Not arriving somewhere quietly annoyed.
There’s a comfort in it too. When everything else is up in the air, the twelve inches of life you carry around is yours to control. You can’t fix the trains. You can absolutely have a plaster and a spare hair tie.
So practicality’s in. Not as a lecture, just as a preference. Turns out the most glamorous thing you can do right now is be the person who’s got it handled.
