Accessory is hardly the category that does it justice. Yes, we’re used to filing bags under that label, in a section that also quietly implies not essential. But for any woman, placing bags in that context would be nothing short of blasphemy.

Vivienne Westwood’s latest designer women’s bag collection feels designed precisely to remind us of this truth. Bags have a defined role; they are very often a starting point, not some throwaway apostrophe in our everyday lives. And, ça va sans dire, a central pillar of our outfit.

A wide collection, but never watered down

First prop to Vivienne Westwood’s designer women’s bags: the collection is certainly broad, but it is not diluted. None of the 100+ items in the latest drop from the British house feels like it’s there just to make up the numbers.

Each piece has its own personality, each tells a story, holding a past, a present and a future.

The references to Vivienne Westwood’s history, even in terms of fabrics and materials, are obvious. There’s tartan, a kind of signature for the House; there’s crocodile-effect embossing; there’s suede calf leather; and there are the metal details of the equally iconic Vivienne Westwood orb.

The result is a collection that is broad, yes, but never watered down. Anyone scrolling through it, piece by piece, product by product, will unmistakably feel they’re in a one-to-one conversation with each design.

A rooted identity, but not stuck in the past

Vivienne Westwood’s story is one of the longest and most successful in fashion, but a rooted identity does not have to mean being anchored to the past.

It would perhaps be easier to simply consume the enormous heritage of the House, which has been under construction since the 1970s.

That is not what’s happening here. Even in this latest collection, Vivienne Westwood’s historic identity becomes the vocabulary with which to write the present and the future. The signs and symbols are all there, but they’re shifted, shrunk, enlarged, sometimes even contradicted.

Tartan, for example, is not used as a mere exercise in punk nostalgia: it becomes a cleaned-up, almost rationalised graphic motif, applied to contemporary structures and sharper silhouettes, still fully in line with what Vivienne has been and will be.

The same goes for the orb, the house’s iconic symbol. We’re a long way from modern logos – almost all of them screaming, almost all of them flimsy status props. The orb is very clearly a signature, certifying that behind that bag, behind that so-called accessory, there is the same quality, the same evolving thought.

And so the collection manages to speak both to those who know and have lived the brand’s incredible history, and to those encountering Vivienne Westwood and her designs for the very first time. To those looking for a bag capable of genuinely transforming a wardrobe, and of pushing beyond the idea of the season – even beyond fashion itself.

It is a sense of continuity, articulated with a sharply contemporary clarity and a kind of awareness that is rare in today’s designer landscape. Perhaps one more reason to let yourself be caught by Vivienne Westwood’s latest bags.