The Cargo Bag Trend Sends Ugly Wallets Into Hiding at New York Fashion Week
This season's multi-pocket It bags want you to wear your clutter on your sleeve.
What comes after the belted bag craze? Pockets, pockets, and more pockets. Indeed, the hottest carryalls at New York Fashion Week this season seem to be adorned with functional exterior compartments.
The sheer density of options might be new, but the instinct is not. This year's stylish take on schlepping harkens back to the utilitarian vibe that swept runways in 2023, bringing pocket shoulder bag styles to Miu Miu, Altuzarra, and Hermès. Spring 2025 bag trends later saw Chanel tack cell phone-sized slots onto the sides of quilted leather slings and Miu Miu add zippered front pouches to bookish canvas backpacks. Now, designers are iterating the look across silhouettes big and small for fall, winter, and beyond.
Coach's Fall 2025 collection introduced a pocketed micro-purse called the Twin Pocket Bag.
At Coach, where the likes of Ella Emhoff and Coco Jones sat front-row, the micro-bag trend took a practical turn with the runway debut of the Twin Pocket Bag—a top-handle design inspired by an archive piece from 1968. Introduced for Fall 2025 in three neutral shades of intentionally worn-in leather, the style features two prominent flap pockets secured with brass clasps. Some were given a hand-painted graffiti treatment. Some were tricked out with plushie bag charms and sweaters tied around the straps. Others were left unembellished, and carried either by hand or tucked beneath the model's arm like a clutch.
In some cases, the bags were decorated with sweaters and plush charms.
Models also wore the bags tucked under their arms like clutches.
Cargo was the word at Tory Burch's Fall/Winter 2025 show, where attendees such as Chloe Fineman and Martha Stewart watched a network of exposed pockets crop up on jackets and satchels. Meant to be clasped like a briefcase, these totes—which were rendered in a punchy cherry red hue as well as classic brown—all but replace the need for a wallet with built-in card slots, keychain hooks, snap closures, and flap pockets. In keeping with the collection's stated theme of "twisted American sportswear," the result is a purse that looks like it's been turned inside-out to reveal—rather than conceal—the organizational system within.
Top-handle cargo totes accessorized Tory Burch's Fall/Winter 2025 collection.
The exterior of Burch's multi-pocket totes featured details you'd normally find inside a wallet, such as card-holding slots.
The collection rendered the cargo satchel design in cherry red as well as brown leather.
Of course, every runway trend needs a celebrity patron saint. And in recent months, Dua Lipa has been leading the charge in two pocket-covered Chanel styles. In January, her airport outfit included a black Chanel maxi hobo bag with a chunky gold chain strap from the French fashion house's 2025 Cruise collection.
Dua Lipa wears an insulated trench coat with sneakers, sweatpants, a Chanel hobo bag, and a black Birkin at the airport.
In February, Lipa and her towering coquette hair bow sat front-row at Chanel's Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2025 show during Paris Couture Fashion Week. Around her shoulders, she sported the cape trend. On her arm, however, the pop star cradled yet another multi-pocket gem: a quilted black drawstring hobo bag with gold hardware and maxi side pockets from the label's Spring/Summer 2025 Ready-to-Wear collection.
Dua Lipa poses in a black cape accessorized with a matching maxi hobo bag at Chanel's Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2025 show.
Dua Lipa carries a quilted sling with a gold chain strap and dual flap pockets on the sides to a Chanel photocall.
It seems It girls are no longer interested in letting the detritus of their lives jangle at the bottom of their bags. Nor are they particularly keen on repeatedly opening and closing their caryalls to return keys, phones, and wallets to their rightful place. In the age of "What's In My Bag" show-and-tell content, perhaps designers are finally catching up to what women really want: to wear their clutter proudly on their sleeves.
