Menswear used to borrow its cues from the sidelines - a good coat, a decent watch, maybe a tailored suit for the flight home. That's no longer the whole story. The most interesting bag news of the past few months hasn't come out of a showroom; it's come off the pitch, out of an arrivals hall, tracked and cropped and zoomed-in on by people who happen to notice these things. Here are some of the recent bags spotted
Yamal's bag collection has quietly become one of the more serious ones in football; Hermès, Bottega, and now a run of Chanel pieces that suggest more than a passing interest. The one worth pausing on is the Waist Bag from Chanel's Métiers d'Art 2026 collection: lambskin and calfskin, gold-tone hardware, a dark brown that reads almost like oxblood in low light.
The design itself is an archive pull. Creative director Matthieu Blazy based it on Chanel's Triple Turn-Lock bag from the 1990s, keeping the dual CC turn-locks on a puffy quilted flap but adding a built-in belt strap that lets the piece move between crossbody, shoulder, and waist.
Cricket rarely gets folded into these conversations, which makes Suryakumar Yadav's airport rotation worth flagging. He's been travelling with the Rimowa Original Cabin, the grooved-aluminum carry-on that's become something close to a uniform piece among professional athletes, and a Gucci GG Scuba pouch, an embossed neoprene zip pouch with leather trim, unmistakable even at a distance.
Van Dijk arrived carrying Chanel's Large Shopping Bag grained calfskin, gold-tone hardware, black from the same Métiers d'Art 2026 collection as Yamal's waist bag. Grained calfskin, gold-tone hardware, black. It's built on real shopper proportions rather than a scaled-down approximation of one: a structured tote with double top handles, the interlocking CC turn-lock at the front, and enough depth to actually function as a daily carry rather than sit purely as a styling piece.
Endrick's choice is the most conservative on this list, and that's exactly the appeal. The Louis Vuitton Keepall Bandoulière 50, in classic Monogram canvas, has barely changed since it was introduced in the 1930s. This iteration comes trimmed in natural cowhide with a removable strap and LV's rolled top handles, sized to sit comfortably between an overnight bag and a full travel case.
The most interesting piece on this list by some distance. The Hermès Haut à Courroies, or HAC, dates to 1892, originally built to carry riding boots and saddles, a full century before it became a travel bag in the modern sense. It also predates the Birkin, not the other way around: taller, more rectangular, built on the same saddle-stitched leather and turn-lock hardware that established the house in the first place.