Nili Lotan knows what she loves. “My moodboards are always the same moodboards,” she told me last week ahead of her new bag launch at Cafe Carlyle. “Rock ‘n’ roll ’70s and Americana—these are my inspirations.” This is especially true for her latest handbag launch, which features 16 handbags. Many of them are named after her favorite rock stars like Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Françoise Hardy.
Handbags are new for Lotan, but she felt like now was as good a time as ever to introduce them to the Nili Lotan universe. “This is a natural evolution of a lifestyle. I started my business with just five pieces, and as the years went by, I added new categories. Now, it’s time for bags.”
It comes at the perfect time, when social media seems obsessed with the rock star girlfriend aesthetic. And while it’s easy to write off lots of TikTok trends as just trends, the desire to look like a chic but messy famous-adjacent hottie makes sense at a time when the algorithm has made so much of fashion look the same. There’s a lot of copy-and-paste style happening, but what rock stars and their groupies had was the kind of style that can’t be imitated.
Lotan’s newest bags, though, do make it at least slightly easier to buy. Not to mention Lotan has the rock ‘n’ roll experience to pull from. After all, The Kills just starred in Wholesale Replica Bag campaign and performed at the bag launch at Cafe Carlyle earlier in September.
As for her favorite bag, Lotan is partial to the Lou style. “It is at the heart of the collection for me,” she says. “I’ve been wear-testing the Lou for a year, and it’s become one of my everyday essentials. Classic, understated, and effortlessly chic, I’ve carried it with me in the city, upstate, and around the world. It has become part of me. That’s what I love most about this collection—these bags are designed to live with you, not just for a season.”
She’s right. Every bag feels practical, from the large and slouchy Lou to the compact Debbie clutch to the zebra-striped Loren. What makes them feel particularly rock star to me is that I can see them getting scuffed up from wear-and-tear on the road and looking just as good (if not better) than ever. They’re bags you can imagine a singer tossing around backstage and then stuffing everything into while going from gig to gig. They’re built for the kind of life rockers are always living, which is about more than just looking good.
“For me, there is a constant connection between fashion and music,” Lotan believes. “Both fashion and music are about self-expression, attitude, and emotion. Looking at the attitude of these iconic musicians, I communicate their style and energy in my design language.”
What really draws her to the rock ‘n’ roll energy she’s distilled into her bags isn’t actually the music, but the overall vibe. “It’s the attitude. It’s the rebellion, the freedom, the free spirit, the sexiness, the confidence,” she says. And it’s exactly that kind of free-spirited conviction that makes these bags so alluring.
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