As seen on Broadway, in Washington Square, on the 6 and 7 trains, and at LaQuan Smith’s show on Pier 76.
Photo: Hannah La Follette Ryan
What’s that jangle you hear around town? It’s a chaotic cacophony of Labubu figurines, lip glosses, carabiners, water bottles, Pokémon cards, raccoon tails, rabbit feet, dice, tiny Eiffel Towers, Beanie Babies, and, of course, keys, all of them dangling from Prada purses, L.L.Bean backpacks, and Baggu totes.
Bag-charm self-expression has hit a peak. Where once we might have wondered what was in our fellow subway riders’ carryalls, now the contents hang out in public view, grinning up at us in the form of emoji plushies and framed photos of boyfriends and K-pop stars. Fashion Week attendees carried designer bags adorned with … miniature designer bags. Elementary-school kids went back to class hauling backpacks heavy with Touchland hand sanitizers in Jibbitz-adorned carrying cases made by Crocs and lip balms strapped into holsters. (Some teachers have begun to complain about bag charms, citing distraction.) To shoulder your way off the subway during rush hour is to run a gauntlet of leering lafufus (that is, faux Labubus). In the most extreme cases, you can barely see the bag at all, buried beneath an avalanche of doodads.
The bag-charm boom shows little sign of stopping, and, maybe inevitably, high-priced status dongles are now part of the look. At the opening of Dior’s new flagship, there was a display for customizing key chains; Maison de Sabré, an Australian leather-goods line, has trucks driving around town advertising AirTag-size leather bag charms in the shape of fruits; and Loewe recently released a $750 two-and-a-half-inch-wide orange leather pumpkin keychain for Halloween. You can hang it from your backpack by the twist in its golden stem.