Blown up: Why bigger is better this coming season

We’re emerging from the era of the micro-sized. For the past couple of years, mini accoutrements have been making headlines, from Jacquemus’ impossibly small 'Le Chiquito' mini tote bag – fitting little more than a lip balm and a bank card – to the inexorable return of kitten heels.

“They [micro accessories] have been very much coveted,” says Celenie Seidel, senior womenswear lead at Farfetch, "with even skirts becoming unimaginably tiny.”

But as we enter the spring/summer 2023 season, we’re about to see a seismic sartorial shift. Just like the pendulum swings between maximalism and minimalism and hemlines rise and fall, accessories also exist in the proverbial ‘circle of life’, scaling up and down as tastes change. Just think back to the late 2000s, when hobo and tote bags took over after Fendi’s slim baguette. Then, in the mid-2010s, the industry made another 180-degree turn, with re-editions of coveted 90s bags causing accessories to shrink again.

Considering the constant, oscillating back-and-forth, it only makes sense to see designers today – and, in turn, their customers – starting to react. “By taking the opposite direction, instantly a sense of newness and freshness is achieved,” concludes Seidel.

Danish brand Lovechild 1979’s Mia Kaapelgaard is one of the designers to share her reaction to an era of mini accessories. The creative director is glad to see the trend shifting in the opposite direction since she “personally adores" statement accessories. “I love the concept of one accessory that can turn up the volume and punctuate the idea of the silhouette," Kaapelgaard says.

Loewe’s creative director Jonathan Anderson has notably spearheaded the charge for supersized – and equally surrealistic – accessories. On the subject, Anderson says that “the play on silhouette and proportion is all about exploring ideas on artificial and distorted realities and then applying that to wardrobe archetypes.”

The brand’s spring/summer 2023 collection – a glimpse caught below in the now iconic Anthurium petal heel – focused on flipping our perception of staple pieces. It's about “revisiting these classic archetypes and totally rethinking the proportions,” says Anderson. “I liked the idea of pushing a silhouette toward something that can be nonsensical, things that can be irrational.”

Another brand experimenting with gargantuan proportions this spring/summer season was Louis Vuitton. In a brave stylistic exercise, the French maison zoomed in on details. Blown-up zippers, buttons and collars popped up on the runway to further cement the shift towards colossal elements. “Femininity is at the heart of the matter, and Louis Vuitton joins the conversation: looking at it through emphasis, glorifying its complexity, magnifying it, putting it in the spotlight,” the brand noted at the time of the show. “It’s a stylistic exercise that re-evaluates the proportions of clothing and its adjuncts, one in which the codes of femininity unsettle scale."

Moschino is yet another brand presently exploring upscaled silhouettes. For the brand's spring/summer 2023 collection, creative director Jeremy Scott quite literally inflated both clothes and accessories – evidenced in this editorial in the puffed-up lapels of a red blazer. According to Moschino, it is Scott's "response to the gloom and the issues we’re facing today, and its motive is mood buoyancy."

As for how to wear these oversized accessories, it is very much down to personal preference. “One way of thinking would be to find restraint in other elements of the look if the key accessory is going to be super big and bold,” says Seidel. “On the contrary, some believe more is more, so there are really no rules”.

For Kaapelgaard, the more spacious fits and exaggerated proportions in accessories and clothing are something to consider in general. This season, the creative director is drawn to “more relaxed fits in suiting, floor-skimming coats, larger bags and statement jewellery.” “In clothing, there are more tangible benefits to wearing oversized clothes,” she says. “They allow for better movement and are often more comfortable, somehow wonderfully unfussy and transmit an air of sartorial confidence when done the right way.”

Speaking on accessories specifically, she says that “jewellery and bags are a great way to challenge and play with volume and composition.” Adding that, they offer a simple way to elevate your ensemble. “The oversized jewellery and the bold bags were a way for us to emphasise the rather minimalistic, tonal looks we sent down the runway for SS23,” she says.

Seidel has a long list of oversized accessories she plans to don this coming season: “Khaite’s incredible, sculptural belt buckles in gold or silver - the buckles themselves are almost jewellery-like,” she says. Then there are the inflated bags at Marni, Acne Studios and Lemaire, the very key super-sized belt bags at Miu Miu, and Ferragamo’s beautiful, over-proportioned molten metal wrist cuffs. All further proof of the seismic shift in accessory sizing.

“The exact products might not be available yet as people are seeing runway coverage happening live and editorials being published and shared, but they will start to interpret the trends that they see as being the ‘next’ thing early on, in their own way, eventually being able to buy the pieces they loved most when they are released.”

As part of Lovechild 1979’s autumn/winter 2023 collection, just presented at Copenhagen Fashion Week, Kaapelgaard introduced more coveted colossal accessories; heavy-soled shearling sandals alongside oversized, structured leather tote bags “It is our take on XXL accessories this season,” she says. It is further proof that the trend towards blown-up proportions is just taking off, with brands pushing the boundaries for the bijoux to come.

“I’ll definitely add the tote bag to my wardrobe,” Kaapelgaard adds. “I always have a ton of stuff with me, and it has plenty of room for everything.” It is a welcome shift from the era where doubling up on bags was the only way to carry our everyday essentials.