What happens when Valentino, a luxury house steeped in couture excellence, teams up with PORTER, a minimalist Japanese brand that makes very nice bags?
Give up? Okay, I’ll tell you: even nicer bags!
Seen for the first time during Valentino’s Paris Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2024 show, the Maison’s PORTER collection is a stern lesson in how to meld two brands with seemingly opposing outlooks on fashion into an objectively great looking capsule.
The collection, which is available online now, is made up of four contemporary styles: a two-way vertical tote bag, a shoulder bag, a briefcase, and varying sizes of Valentino’s Loco bag, which has been revamped with PORTER’s archetypal nylon touch.
Each bag, while in-keeping with PORTER's utility-based approach, houses all the notes you'd expect Valentino including its Toile Iconographe pattern.
Although PORTER is by no means a cheap brand (its bags tend to range between $200 and $800), compared to the prices of its Valentino collaboration, which is set between $1,500 to $2,350, it’s certainly a hike.
Then again, a rise in price is to be expected when you unite two labels that together cross a line into the world of opulence — especially when the resulting bags are this nice, too.
