Style
The Bigger The Tote, The Hotter The Man
From hunky actors to professional athletes, heartthrobs are all in on big designer bags.
If you’ve been keeping up with the Internet’s favorite boyfriends, you’ve likely noticed their perfectly chiseled arms lugging huge designer totes. Heartthrobs like Pedro Pascal, Colman Domingo, and Nicholas Hoult have all been spotted in recent weeks on their films’ press tours rocking ludicrously capacious bags from brands such as Bottega Veneta (the Andiamo), Valentino (the Nellcôte), and Prada (the Buckle), respectively. Their sudden ubiquity among Hollywood’s leading men almost seems like a PR stunt. Was there an industry-wide memo that luxury totes are a fastpass to daddy-ville?
If so, athletes got it, too. After the 2025 Super Bowl, Vogue’s Christian Allaire declared our time the “era of the men’s power bag,” thanks to the slew of football players, including Travis Kelce, carrying expensive totes. Those couldn’t possibly be the same gym bags that carry jock straps. (Presumably, their real ones were elsewhere — one doesn’t simply toss a dirty jock strap in the Louis.)
So what gives? It wasn’t so long ago that men wearing purses, aka “murses,” were mocked (justice for Joey Tribbiani; he would’ve loved 2025). And now it’s... kinda hot? According to a small poll I conducted on Instagram, 40 out of 52 respondents (77%) thought it was sexy to see a man carrying a good chunk of quality leather. And consider how the traditional menswear alternatives — drab messengers, briefcases, backpacks — can detract from sex appeal: I once lost interest in someone because he carried a backpack. I couldn’t shake off the schoolboy vibes, and I don’t think I’m the only one.
The vogue for roomy men’s bags arguably began in 2017, when Balenciaga and J.W. Anderson’s Spring/Summer 2018 shows saw male models sashaying down runways carrying leather and knit totes, respectively. The tote’s biggest needle-mover, however, was Louis Vuitton. According to Jian DeLeon, Men’s Fashion Director at Nordstrom, a palpable shift began “when the line between a men’s bag and women’s bag began to blur, which is where we saw more men embracing luxury and designer bags from brands like Goyard and Louis Vuitton.” He adds, “Virgil Abloh and Pharrell’s effect on the house also made Vuitton’s accessories more covetable, while pushing the envelope when it comes to design, color, and pattern.”
The trend reached something of a fever pitch in recent years, with Bottega Veneta tapping both A$AP Rocky and Elordi to model ginormous bags for its campaigns in 2023 and 2024, respectively; just last April, Robert Pattinson carried one in Dior Men’s Fall 2025 capsule campaign. (If this trend progresses, the next step might just be for men to add bag charms to their designer wares. Elordi already has.)
Clearly, high-end brands are all in on Big Bag. But are normies following suit? There’s some evidence they are: Per a 2023 Vogue Business report, sales of men’s designer bags were up 5% from 2020 through 2023 — and the accessory is seen as a potential new frontier in men’s fashion now that the sneaker craze has quieted down. “Men in particular tend to gravitate towards elevated versions of familiar things,” DeLeon says. “Tote bags are no different, whether it’s Thom Browne’s elevated take on the classic LL Bean bag to hardy outdoor versions from brands like Filson, Patagonia, and Snow Peak, tote bags occupy this unique space between fashion and utilitarian style.”
Chris Black, writer and founder of Done to Death Projects, is more skeptical — he’s yet to spot many men with designer totes in the wild and believes they’re more of a status symbol than a practicality. “I don’t know if you need to bring a giant Prada bag or a giant Gucci bag onto a tennis court or to an interview at [The Late Show with] Stephen Colbert,” says “I think the statement it’s making is that ‘I’m rich,’ or ‘I want you to think I’m rich.’ The function is real, but I just don’t know how often you need a bag that large. Unless you are traveling at an airport.”
From where I’m seated, though, the bigger the bag, the hotter the man. After all, who doesn’t love a guy who’s willing to put on a little show?
