The most radical thing a luxury brand can do in 2026 is tell you to leave your phone at home. We’re deep in an analogue fever dream, and while fashion keeps flirting with digital convenience (AirPod case covers, Oura ring jackets, et al), Bvlgari’s latest minaudière goes the opposite way. It is engineered to hold a small book, not a screen. Mary Katrantzou, the Roman maison’s first creative director of leather goods, distils her maximal visual language into five sculptural mini bags in the new Icons Minaudière Collection. Developed over 18 months, each piece is a technical study in scale, curvature, and proportion.
Each minaudière also houses a bespoke miniature book, engineered to fit its exact dimensions. The concept, titled “Carrying Culture”, replaces digital content with a physical text. Five collaborators were invited to write for specific Bvlgari icons: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Isabella Rossellini for the Monete; Linda Evangelista for the hand-enamelled Serpenti, a symbol that has defined the house since the 1950s; Kim Ji-won for the Divas’ Dream, the fan-shaped design set with the same stones used in Bvlgari high jewellery; and architect Sumayya Vally on the idea of “home” and protection, which echoes the coiled structure of the Tubogas Minaudière.
Our favourite? The Tubogas Minaudière—an egg-shaped form wrapped in a continuous gold-finished brass coil, available in black or white lizard leather. There is a mythical weight to it that makes the bag feel like a talismanic relic you’d need a vault—or a dragon—to protect. Accompanied by Vally’s Notes on Finding Home, it’s the perfect accessory for someone who still romanticises paper, pauses, nights that don’t require digital documentation.
In a market obsessed with what fits, Katrantzou has turned the vanity case into a secret-keeper. Sometimes, culture is the only thing worth carrying, even if it can’t book you an Uber home.
The Bvlgari Tubogas Minaudière is priced at ₹16,90,000
