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After debating the most impactful women’s and men’s fashion since World War II as part of our T 25 series, we decided to ask five members of the American fashion community to each nominate 10 accessories they felt were worthy of being on a list of the 25 most influential shoes and handbags of the past 100 years.
The 25 selected pieces, which appear not ranked by their importance but in the rough order they were discussed, come from almost every decade since the 1930s (excepting the 1940s and 2020s). Discussed with particular enthusiasm were the picks from the 1990s and early aughts, which made sense, the ’90s were when the idea of the It bag was born, ushering in an era in which status-symbol accessories would permeate pop culture, with Real Housewives and Kardashians wearing Louboutins and carrying Hermès Birkins on TV.
But though we still live in that age, the hysteria around shoes and handbags may have peaked in a 2000 episode of the HBO series “Sex and the City,” in which Sarah Jessica Parker’s character, Carrie Bradshaw, wearing a pair of towering heels and a purple sequin-encrusted Fendi purse, is mugged at gunpoint. When told to hand over her “bag,” she corrects the thief: “It’s a Baguette.”
This conversation has been edited and condensed. Though numbered, the entries below aren’t ranked; their order reflects the course of the panelists’ conversation.
1. Maison Martin Margiela’s Tabi Boot, 1988
Before Martin Margiela made clothes, he designed shoes for a boutique in Antwerp, Belgium. So when he staged his first ready-to-wear runway show in Paris, in 1988, at age 31, he paired the deconstructed garments for which he would become known — like jackets and vests made inside out so their seams became graphic design details — with equally conceptual footwear. Inspired by the image of a bare foot resting atop a high heel, he looked to the Japanese tabi (“foot bag”). The style, which separates the wearer’s big toe from the other four — the division is thought to improve balance — evolved from traditional socks often worn with thong sandals.
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(The article continues in this format, listing the 25 most influential shoes and handbags, with additional commentary from the panelists.)
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