Meet the Coach Empire Carryall, a structured leather tote that has defanged Coach’s Brooklyn Bag as the internet’s latest stake-out-worthy bag and even might be coming for some bigger luxury houses.
Just weeks after the Coach Brooklyn bag won the approval and (famously fleeting) attention of the internet (thank you, Bella Hadid), another one of its new accessories has captured the hearts and wallets of bag enthusiasts far and hide. Bad leather puns aside, though, the Coach Empire Carryall is no joke.
Made of genuine grain leather, this bag is a structured marvel that keeps its shape no matter how many half-drunken bottles of water or miscellaneous trinkets you stuff inside.
Available in four sizes and multiple colorways, the Coach Empire Carryall bag pulls in all kinds of comparisons.
TikTokers have likened its structured base, grainy paneling and lapel accents to that of an Hermés Birkin, one of the most famously pricey bags in the world. And they may have a point.
Like the Birkin, which comes in four sizing options, the Coach Empire Carryall comes in sizes 26, 35, 40 and 48.
The Empire Carryall 48, which was first shown during New York Fashion Week in February, was soft-launched in some Coach stores in the United States in late August but was only available online on Coach’s British website—proper rubbish, as bag-starved fans said.
Some Coach shoppers have been able to snag a Caryall 48 of their own, but it’s kind of a whole thing. On TikTok and Reddit, rumors spread that only 50 of the size 48 bags were made, for example.
One particularly determined woman had to have her bag shipped to New York from an Indianapolis location after trekking all over NYC with no luck.
Even a good chunk of the size 40 Carryall bags, priced at $695, are sold out on the Coach website, which has brought in about 14,333 pageviews a day according to Coach.
If the Coach Empire Carryall is too tricky to get your hands on, some have pointed out that the Coach Empire Carryall looks quite similar to The Row’s Margaux bag, which has earned some Birkin comparisons of its own.
The domed edges and expanding bases give off a similar vibe, but the Margaux is a bit more pebbly, whereas the Empire Carryall is intentionally rigid.
Perhaps the closest luxury relative to Coach’s Empire Carryall, though, is the curved Hug bag from Ferragamo. The bags are so similar, in fact, big-body-bag enthusiasts find themselves stuck between the two in terms of what ludicrously capacious bag they want to tote, budget willing.
In any case, the fact that Coach is being mentioned in the same regard as some of these powerhouse luxury brands is no small feat, considering the brand was once struggling to find its footing in the luxury market.
But with It Bag, after It Bag dropping at a fraction of the cost of its competitors, Coach is having a hall-of-fame run.