I feel that a lot of what is said above is relevant, however how is it that the Hit bag phenomenon has totally disappeared ?
Again, is it that we do not wish to pay a huge price for a bag that we will not carry for more than a season or two, and have difficulties to resell.
The second hand market appears to have an increasing impact.
One of the consequences is to take the time to find bags that are made with great craftsmanship and sold at a reasonable price.
I don' know Boyy or Little Liffner, but found on the place du Marché St Honoré a maison called Delage that comes from the Roaring Twenties, a pure design, great quality at a good price.
Maybe if we want to go in Depth, the problem has less to do with the bags than the media eco-system that managed to turn a bag into a IT bag.
In reality, we have quite a diverse market in terms of bags offering. JWA has nice bags at a decent price. There are brands like Toteme and Polene that have a momentum at a decent price.
What made a bag an It bag? A nice design from a fairly hot or respected brand. The association of the bag with stylish people and something genuine in the way those bags were displayed/consumed. Fendi and Balenciaga may have offered the Baguette and the Lariat to editors and models, the bags were good and hot enough for those people to carry the bags a lot and get photographed with it. We have a dozens of candids of those stylish women with their bags that later became IT! When Chanel launched the Cambon line or YSL launched the Mombasa and the Downtown, it was the same techniques.
The influence of those stylish women: Kate Moss, the Olsen twins, Nicole Ritchie and others created a snowball effects and others celebrities bought the bags.
There wasn’t such a thing as a resell value back then.
And today bags that have the potential to be IT are quite accessible to the mass even though there’s a frenzy about luxury rather than style.
The circuits today are less genuine. People know that those celebrities are paid and now, they have influencers doing unboxings every other day of new « hot » bags when we all know that those influencers only carried Birkin, Kelly and Chanel classics.
It’s no wonder in a way that brands like Polene or Toteme have created a sort of similar success comparable to It bags. Word of mouth, social media and not influence generated their success. The consumer is now at the root of a success of a bag (and maybe some fashion insiders).
What is interesting in the conversations regarding bags now is that, design appreciation and practicality doesn’t seem like a factor anymore.
Because while the price of the most esteemed brands bags are insane for the most part, the bags that will become classics and who starts as IT bags have generally a decent price.
Maybe another reason for the disappearance is that we are too solicited today as consumers. There are many brands, many images, many collections and drops so a consumer can easily feel lost. Because the compilation of images of celebrities wearing a bag, creating a trend and therefore pushing an IT item, where carefully chosen by a team of editors to create a meaningful content and generate desire.