![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/3628.jpg\")
Bloomberg<\/p>\n
Footballers including Virgil van Dijk, who carried a Chanel<\/a> from Matthieu Blazy<\/a>\u2019s debut collection, and Jude<\/a> Bellingham, a Louis Vuitton<\/a> ambassador with a penchant for its monogram\u00a0edition, have taken the man bag from derided to highly desirable. With sales of lucrative leather goods subdued over the past three years, the man bag\u00a0can help the\u00a0$400 billion personal luxury goods industry out of its current slump.<\/p>\n Haaland\u2019s collection \u2014 said to be worth close to \u00a31 million ($1.3 million) \u2014 includes a limited-edition multi-pocket Haut a Courroies (HAC) Birkin,\u00a0and a\u00a0rare HAC depicting a road-and-mountain scene. Each would cost around $50,000 to buy from a resale site \u2014\u00a0and good luck ever finding one in a Hermes International SCA boutique.<\/p>\n Perhaps no item exemplifies the bling boom-and-bust of the past six or so years as much as the handbag. About a quarter of a century ago, the \u201cIt-bag\u201d became the ultimate status symbol for women\u00a0as styles\u00a0such as the Fendi<\/a> Baguette, Balenciaga<\/a>\u2019s City and Dior<\/a>\u2019s Saddle became iconic. But in recent years, few models have captured the imagination of customers\u00a0in the same way.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, prices have skyrocketed, with\u00a0average luxury handbag prices up 60% from 2019, according to Laurent Vasilescu, an analyst at BNP Paribas SA.\u00a0<\/p>\n Against this backdrop, jewelry has looked better value for money. Add in competition from second-hand bags, as well as more affordable lines such as Tapestry<\/a> Inc.\u2019s Coach<\/a>, and across the industry\u00a0the number of premium purses sold \u2014\u00a0priced above \u00a0$500 in stores \u2014 has been declining since 2022, according to Vasilescu.<\/p>\n Slowing bag sales have depressed revenues\u00a0and hurt luxury\u2019s bottom line. For the leading brands, handbags have a gross margin \u2013 the difference between the manufacturing cost and the retail price \u2013 of more than 80%, according to Mario Ortelli, chief executive officer of luxury adviser Ortelli & Co.<\/p>\n So marketing more bags to men could help narrow the sales and profit shortfall. Men accounted for just a quarter of the global luxury handbag market in 2025, according to Bain & Co<\/a>.<\/p>\n The current market share likely\u00a0reflects the fact that many men in Asia are comfortable carrying luxury handbags, and that some upmarket models, such as Prada<\/a> SpA backpacks, skew more to male customers.<\/p>\n But the practice has not yet moved into the mainstream in\u00a0the west, creating a clear opportunity for top-end brands. With footballers showing off their purse prizes, hard on the heels of New York Knicks player Tyler Kolek\u2019s Margaux model made by US firm The Row<\/a>, and Wimbledon winner and Gucci<\/a> ambassador Jannik Sinner\u2019s exclusive bags from the Italian house, that could soon change.<\/p>\n Luxury brands, led by LVMH<\/a> Moet Hennessy<\/a> Louis Vuitton SE, are embracing sport as a way to connect with new communities. Consequently, athletes have become fashion influencers,\u00a0required to highlight their sporting-goods sponsors on and off the pitch or court. But traveling to and from matches offers a way to express their personal style, although some, such\u00a0as Kylian Mbappe at LVMH\u2019s Dior, have deals with luxury names too. For NBA players, the walkway from arena entrance to locker room\u00a0has been transformed into a pre-game runway.<\/p>\n And while luxury goods help the wearer flaunt their wealth, for men there are relatively few options. Watches are the mainstay, but jewelry is gaining traction, with some men, such as baseball player Miguel Rojas, wearing Van Cleef & Arpels<\/a> necklaces and bracelets.<\/p>\n To tempt more men to buy handbags, luxury companies\u00a0need to adjust their strategies. While Mbappe was spotted with a small Dior clutch, most football stars have been carrying larger models, perhaps because they are effectively\u00a0super-luxe kit bags. They also happen to look less like a traditional women\u2019s handbag.<\/p>\n The past couple of years have\u00a0seen\u00a0the rise of micro-bags. Shrinking purses enabled houses\u00a0to offer cheaper products without overtly cutting prices.\u00a0But mini-bags have probably peaked. Companies are now devoting\u00a0more attention to larger sizes\u00a0for both men and women,\u00a0Claudia D\u2019Arpizio, who leads the global fashion and luxury practice at Bain<\/a>, told me.<\/p>\n Chanel is the trailblazer\u00a0with Blazy\u2019s oversized styles. But more houses should follow, particularly Hermes. Haaland has generated $8.8\u00a0million\u00a0in brand value for Hermes over the course of the football tournament, far ahead of the\u00a0other\u00a0luxury companies tracked by Launchmetrics<\/a>, which\u00a0analyzes social media and other mentions.<\/p>\n Luca Solca<\/a>, an analyst at\u00a0Bernstein, has found that smaller Hermes bags change hands for the highest multiples of their retail price, reflecting their popularity, particularly\u00a0among\u00a0Asian consumers. Anecdotal evidence\u00a0suggests that it\u2019s\u00a0even harder to obtain larger sizes from Hermes stores, as the company has tried to satisfy micro-mania. But searches for bigger Birkins on resale site The RealReal<\/a> Inc. and price-intelligence platform Secondsense\u00a0have risen since the start of the World Cup. Hermes should rebalance production so that more men can emulate their favorite football stars.<\/p>\n It helps that in pivoting to maxi from mini, luxury will be tapping into another way to deliver value for\u00a0money: making products more functional and versatile. While larger bags can be heavy, they can be used every day to carry a laptop, perhaps instead of a briefcase, or work-out gear.\u00a0They can also double as an overnight carryall, cutting the cost per use.<\/p>\n As men become more comfortable carrying purses, they may experiment with different looks. Musician Harry Styles regularly sported smaller Gucci bags when his friend Alessandro Michele<\/a> was creative director\u00a0of the Kering<\/a> SA-owned house. More recently, he\u2019s been spotted with a leopard print Chanel. But jumbo bags are a good place to start.<\/p>\n The World Cup will soon fade from memory. Big bling must ensure the buzz \u2014 and any sales benefit \u2014 from Haaland\u2019s man Birkins linger long after the last ball is kicked. \u00a0\u00a0\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Bloomberg Published July 17, 2026 After Norway\u2019s\u00a0World Cup exit\u00a0following its defeat by England last weekend, 25-year-old star…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":52689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12919],"tags":[34107,34108,34105,5702,1576,2096,27536,3551,997,12850,6551,4953,34106,2514,24376,2773,19498,2009,4955,15577,18723,19247,13746,27583,32512,34109,19813,11642,457],"class_list":["post-52688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hermes","tag-alessandro-michele","tag-bain","tag-bain-co","tag-balenciaga","tag-beauty","tag-chanel","tag-coach","tag-dior","tag-fashion","tag-fendi","tag-gucci","tag-hermes","tag-jude","tag-kering","tag-launchmetrics","tag-louis-vuitton","tag-luca-solca","tag-luxury","tag-lvmh","tag-matthieu-blazy","tag-moet-hennessy","tag-network","tag-prada","tag-professionals","tag-tapestry","tag-the-realreal","tag-the-row","tag-van-cleef-arpels","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}