Bag charms: a trendy touch or just tacky?

From pearl necklaces to tiny plushies, by now you’ve probably seen just about every trinket turned into a cute bag charm. But if you wouldn’t put a bumper sticker on a Bentley, why should we be accessorising perfectly good bags?

The popularisation of these charms is widely accredited to Jane Birkin and her styling of her namesake Hermès bag across the 80s and 90s. Her luxury handbags were often overcrammed, worn, and adorned with personalised touches – scarves, beads, and talismans. Individuality over designer branding.

This style broke into the mainstream in the late 2000s and 2010s, featured in Karl Lagerfeld’s 96^th collection, and was seen on the Jenners and other celebs. Luxury brands played a surprisingly large role in their success, with Hermès selling coveted leather charms and canedas (metal locks) as bag accessories around this time. Their stint in the limelight was short-lived, however, as minimalism was already on the rise.

And now they’re back! Adopted into the 2024 junky maximalist zeitgeist, our rabid social media trend cycle has given them new life. Now, if my bag doesn’t have a fuzzy little guy tacked on, why would I even bring it to the bar? Charity shop necklaces, your aunt’s old scarves, a pick-n-mix of crystals – people are using just about anything to spruce up their purses.

As is the constant fear when reviving 2010s hipster trends, are bag charms tacky? In my opinion, sometimes. Too many things clustered around handles can make a bag overcrowded; I don’t want to hear you jangling down the street from 50 yards away… Taking your bag charm inspiration straight from TikTok is also pretty unoriginal. For an accessory that’s supposed to be individualistic, the same coquette pink bows are getting dull.

But overall, I like them! Seeing maximalism back on the whole is fun. If I can feel like I’m rebelling against capitalist assimilation with a silly string of gems hanging off my bag, why wouldn’t I?

The best bag charm looks are undeniably second-hand finds - gaudy original 2010s bracelets given new life. We can absolutely tell when your charms are from Temu, and we are absolutely judging you. Nothing charming about fast fashion and child labour; those plastic gems are giving you a cheap look and a curse on your bloodline, probably. Your mum definitely has better trinkets stashed away from the 70s, or what about your older sister’s old keyrings that she won’t miss?

I hope to see many more silly little plushies on sleek going-out bags. The highlight of my night!