In the early aughts, “it” bags usually had a few things in common. They were often produced by a designer-led brand. They were fixtures on the crooks of celebrities’ arms. And, because of their price or available quantities, they were slightly out of reach for the average consumer.
Today, the “it” bag has gone mass. The mechanics of online virality have put what’s hot in the hands of consumers, and they have decided that most anything can be “it” — like the Trader Joe’s tote or Uniqlo’s rounded sling bag, for instance.
In this democratized style environment, there’s technically no reason a mall brand like Gap can’t have an “it” bag, too. But there are a couple of problems. Gap isn’t known for bags, or status symbols. As enduring as their jeans and T-shirts have been, they aren’t sending lines snaking down New York City streets.
So the brand called Reed Krakoff, a veteran designer known for turning around beleaguered brands and elevating retail stalwarts including Tommy Hilfiger, Tiffany & Co. and Coach.
Last year, Krakoff, 62, joined Gap Inc., the parent company of the Gap, Old Navy and Banana Republic, as executive director of accessories, as the company tries to pull off its own splashy turnaround — so far punctuated by buzzy ad campaigns featuring the pop group Katseye and collaborations with stars like Hailey Bieber.
Krakoff’s first offering, announced on Tuesday, is a collection of bags riffing on the label’s popular items: a fleece-y, kangaroo-pouch tote resembling Gap’s logo sweatshirt; a structured, top-handle tote that looks as if a Birkin got dressed in a pair of jeans; and a limited edition, five-pocket tote stitched together with scraps of denim and cinched with a thick black belt with a gold Gap logo.
That last one retails for $498. That could be a tough sell for the young people Gap is trying to court, many of whom are still discovering the bags Krakoff made for Coach, like the brand’s Ergo bag, a simple curved leather purse he designed in 1997 that has taken off with Gen Z lately. They’re attracted to the durability, accessible price point and the thrill of owning a handbag unlike any currently on the market.
The rest of his bags for Gap cost between $29.95 and $148. In a conversation that has been edited and condensed for clarity, Krakoff talked about how he creates covetable accessories.
You once said that one of the reasons you left Tommy Hilfiger for Coach was that the brand “wanted to go super mass” and that direction “wasn’t that interesting” to you. The Gap is the embodiment of mass. What changed your mind?
Mass, expensive, has nothing to do with how I feel about it. It’s the brand itself and what that means to that brand. At the time, what they were wanting to do was much less about design. It was much more about growing in terms of volume and a lot of repetition.
I’ve done every price point, and I love doing different price points. To me, it’s always the same: It’s a problem-solving creative exercise. How do you create something that is as good as it could possibly be, for the price that the customer understands?
Gap didn’t have an accessories department before you started, so you’ve really had carte blanche when it comes to interpreting the brand for bags, shoes and jewelry.
I wanted people to fall in love with the bags, yes, because of Gap, but independent of it. That’s the only way to create something that has real desire.
Gap is so understood in terms of what it is. It’s laid back. It’s American style. It’s simple but not plain. It’s very much sort of core American tendency in design. You think of the iconic Gap tee, you think of Gap denim, you think of the iconic hoodie that Gap created or has had in their line for years and years and years. Those things are part of people’s lives.
After deciding on the icons you wanted to draw on, then came the design. Tell me a bit about your process.
I never do inspiration boards. It’s not that important what you’re doing. It’s how you’re doing it. I work across three different mediums. I hand sketch a lot. I use an iPad, and I use A.I. I use them opportunistically. I sketch most. But for speed, sometimes I use A.I. just for multiples of things or colorways, material ways, just to see. It’s not helpful unless you know what you’re designing.
You’ve often been tasked with designing for a brand that is trying to transform itself. What do you make of the fact that you’ve almost become a go-to guy for when a brand needs a bit of rebuffing?
It’s the other way around. It’s more me being attracted to a situation where it’s a great brand. Brands like Coach, like Tiffany, John Hardy — they needed a real refit. They are really open to change because usually they’ve tried a bunch of things. And what I find over and over again is that it’s easy to talk about it — “we want to be more modern, more relevant,” more this and that. It’s very hard to do it.
Some of the bags you designed for Coach in the 1990s and early 2000s are still sought after today. Do you think about your bags for Gap having second or third lives?
I keep seeing the Coach bags on the street, I keep seeing them when I’ve gone into vintage stores, and, you know, the idea was never to be an “It” bag. An “It” bag? I don’t even know what that is anymore. I think there are so many bags in the market, expensive bags on the market, that it changes all the time. What we’re doing — and I believe that we all have achieved it, at least partially — is to create a bag that’s not out there.
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