Gen Z’s new favourite bag is this school-mom tote

Our latest bout of retromania has led to 2016 taking over our IG feeds, and photos of everyone’s younger, skinnier, simpler, happier selves are throwing us in a morass of existential crises. Nostalgia has become our aesthetic of choice—across music, film, and most certainly fashion. We squeezing our butts back into our flares (while still, fortunately, remaining sceptical of the sausage casings that are skinny jeans), checking our ballet flats for scuffs, flaunting our Balenciaga Le City bags and Chloé Paddingtons… The way forward seems to be via the past.

Among ’90s and aughties It brands seeing a resurgence of interest is Parisian label Longchamp, most famous for its Le Pliage tote bag—a nylon carry-all with a contrasting leather top handle and flap, available in a range of sizes. The Le Pliage was launched in 1993 and soon became the tote of choice of well-to-do women in their forties catching a flight or running errands. It was sturdy, neat, practical, something you’d pick up at an airport duty-free while travelling abroad. It came folded into a neat little package, named as it was for the French word for “to fold”. A frameable moment came when the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, carried a brown Le Pliage at her graduation from St Andrews in 2005. By the 2010s, it became the carry-all toted by London It girls like Kate Moss and Alexa Chung.

What the Le Pliage didn’t aspire to be—as 2026 is witnessing—is the protagonist of countless “Let’s pack for class” videos on TikTok or a prop in “Let’s-go-grab-matcha” GRWM Reels. TikTok creators are calling it the book bag for students. While Gen Z-ers, including some famous ones like Lila Moss, have discovered the stylish practicality of the Le Pliage Original XL Travel bag, they also can’t seem to get enough of the Le Pliage Original pouch.

It’s the same kind of appreciation that the equally small but mighty Uniqlo round mini bag garnered a few years ago. Thanks to the slew of videos, we know the Le Pliage Original pouch, that’s literally the size of a folded Le Pliage Original L Tote, can hold a Sol de Janeiro body spray, some “very tangled” earphones, skinny wallet, phone, Rhode blush stick, wet wipes, a mini Dior lippie, Altoids, and an urn of unicorn ashes.

Somewhere around fall 2024, Lyst declared the Longchamp Le Pliage one of the hottest items of the season, and demand has been steadily rising over the past five years. There’s also a thriving business on Amazon dealing with straps for the Le Pliage pouch (not authorised by Longchamp, of course).

Two of my Gen Z colleagues own Le Pliage. One ended up buying a beige-and tan tote from Galeries Lafayette in Paris when she was hunting for a bag that could securely carry her passport and Kindle, was weightless enough to lug around all day, and looked fashionable enough. Another has the black-and-tan version in four sizes, from the XL travel bag to the pouch; the pouch stays tucked inside the medium tote that she brings to work every day in case of last-minute dinner plans, a real Matryoshka doll of bags. “It looks good day to night, is light, and light on the wallet,” she explained.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Jean Cassegrain, chief executive of Longchamp, made an interesting point about how the younger clientele the company is witnessing now was never part of its marketing strategy. “That demographic does not want something that feels like it’s been made for them, especially for that ‘first bag’ purchase… It really only works when they feel like they took it and embraced it for themselves.” (The company continues to be owned and run by the Cassegrain family.)

It’s an observation that you realise could explain the throngs of Gen Z-ers crowding the mosh pit at a Green Day or Guns N’ Roses concert in Mumbai. A re-bestowing of coolth on cultural objects that were meant for a different audience, an appropriation of nostalgia in the eyes of confused millennials (moi, for example) who can’t fathom this context-free embrace of the bygone. For Gen Z, it’s a lot simpler—a leaning towards the stylish practicality that is suddenly making the rest of us pull up our ankle socks.