Did A Small Dog Inspire The Next ‘It’ Bag?

A growing number of brands have embraced a new handbag shape that evokes the skinny, elongated bodies of dachshunds.

Over the past year or so, a growing number of brands have embraced a new handbag shape. It’s neither bowler nor baguette; not a satchel or a saddle.

Skinny and elongated, it has a figure similar to that of a hot dog bun – or a wiener dog. You could call it a dachshund bag.

“I think it’s the newest, freshest shape we have seen in the market in the last three to four years,” said Will Cooper, the senior vice president for women’s designer clothing, shoes and bags at Saks Fifth Avenue. “It feels like something people don’t already have in their wardrobe.”

Khaite, Jil Sander and Tory Burch are all labels that have made bags with an oblong shape, which some in the industry have named “east-west.” Among the first brands to introduce it was Alaia, which called its version the “teckel” – or “dachshund” in French. (That and the other newer styles are not to be confused with a four-legged bag that Thom Browne released in 2016 and that was named for and made to resemble his wire-haired dachshund, Hector.)

Cooper said the recent crop of dachshund-shaped bags were “noticeable without being logo-focused,” placing them somewhere between styles associated with the quiet-luxury trend and others with heavy branding. “These are still sophisticated and understated but not in a quiet way,” he said.

Alaia’s creative director, Pieter Mulier, introduced the teckel bag at a runway show in July 2023. He landed on its shape while aiming to develop a bag that looked out of proportion, a representative for the brand said in an email. Mulier often brings his black Labrador retriever, John John (not named for John F Kennedy Jr), to Alaia’s studio.

The breed is popular in Paris, said Fleur-Marie Desfougeres, a director at Centrale Canine, because its small stature makes it more suitable for city living. Designer Simon Porte Jacquemus, who lives and works in Paris, adopted a spotted dachshund in 2020 and gave the dog, Toutou, his own Instagram account.

Designer Sandy Liang, who included a bow-embellished, oblong-shaped bag in her fall 2024 collection, said its form reminded her of a pencil case. “If I was a little kid drawing a purse, this is what it would look like,” Liang said.

With some of the mini bags that became popular in recent years, people found it challenging to fit certain essentials: “My phone, my readers, my wallet,” as Kyle Branch, the fashion director at the Dallas boutique Forty Five Ten, put it.

The bags shaped like dachshunds, he said, “hold all of that while being compact”.

During recent fashion weeks, bags with the silhouette were spotted in the spring 2025 collections of labels like Bottega Veneta, Prada and Conner Ives. The shape has yet to be fully embraced by mass-market brands, but Branch believes that is possible.

“They have gained a lot of momentum over the past two seasons, and based on history, everything that performs this way has a good shelf life,” he said of the bags. “I don’t think they are disappearing. They are special and easy.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

©2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES

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