9 Fall 2023 Handbag Trends Collide With the Open-Bag Look

A fall handbag trend documented by ELLE Canada describes stylish shoppers carrying their bags unzipped or unsnapped, leaving the interior visible instead of closed off, according to the outlet's report, "Open Bag Trend: Fashion Girls Are Leaving Their Handbag Open". The report lands in the same season a separate accessory roundup tracked nine distinct bag trends, underscoring how many directions the category is moving at once.

What does the "open bag" trend actually describe?

The mechanism ELLE Canada names in its headline is straightforward: a bag carried with its closure, zipper, flap, or clasp left undone rather than fastened. The outlet's headline states plainly that "fashion girls are leaving their handbag open." That phrasing is the operative detail — the trend is defined by what a bag owner does not do (close the bag) rather than by a new silhouette, material, or hardware feature.

"Fashion Girls Are Leaving Their Handbag Open" — ELLE Canada headline

Because the underlying report is syndicated through Google News and the full text was not available for direct quotation beyond its headline, this piece limits itself to what that headline establishes rather than extrapolating styling advice, specific brands, or city-by-city sightings that were not independently verified.

How does leaving a bag open change what a bag has to do?

An unclosed bag functions differently than a closed one. A bag that stays open removes the friction of zipping and unzipping, which trades security and contents-concealment for faster access and a deliberately undone look. That trade-off matters for design: a structured bag with a rigid frame will hold its shape and keep contents from spilling even without a working closure, while a soft, slouchy style left open is more likely to gape or lose items. A related design discussion on bag structure — Ensure Small Bags Stay Upright with Structured Design — describes how rigid framing keeps smaller bags from collapsing in on themselves, a property that becomes more relevant, not less, when a bag's closure is not doing that job.

Does the open-bag look fit the season's broader trend list?

Haley's Handbags' own roundup, "9 Handbag Trends for Fall 2023: First Impressions Matter", catalogued nine separate directions for the category heading into fall. That roundup did not list "open bag" as one of the nine named trends in its own right. The open-bag look reported by ELLE Canada reads less as a competing ninth-plus trend and more as a styling behavior that can be layered onto several bag types already in circulation — structured totes, slouchy hobos, or framed satchels alike — since it describes how a bag is worn, not what shape it is.

What do the numbers show so far?

• 9 — trends counted in Haley's Handbags' fall 2023 roundup of handbag design directions.
• Sept. 16, 2026 — publication date recorded in the URL for that nine-trend roundup, placing it in the same reporting window referenced by ELLE Canada's open-bag story.

Neither source publishes a count of how many shoppers or retailers have adopted the open-bag look, and no sales or search-volume figures accompany either report. Any claim about the trend's scale beyond what is stated in these two sources would not be sourced.

How might the open-bag trend show up over the rest of the season?

• Fall 2023 roundup published: Nine handbag trends catalogued, with no open-bag category listed among them.
• Open-bag trend reported: ELLE Canada's headline identifies the unclosed-bag look as a distinct styling choice among "fashion girls."
• Design response flagged: Separate reporting on structured bag framing notes that rigid construction helps smaller bags hold shape — a feature that matters more for bags carried open.

Whether the open-bag look becomes a named entry in next season's trend lists, or stays a styling habit layered onto existing silhouettes, is not addressed in either source and is not predicted here.

Artiglio is A coming-soon iPhone chief of staff for briefings and drafts. Not on the App Store yet.