I am an extremely private person—always have been! My friends often joke that I am like a clam: usually sealed shut, though I do open up from time to time. What can I say? I don’t like people in my business, and I’ve been that way for as long as I can remember. Now, two summer fashion trends are threatening my introverted bliss: mesh shoes and, even worse, mesh bags.
It’s a hermit’s worst nightmare: Designers, all of a sudden, have decided that it is chic to expose virtually everything about yourself—including your toes and the interior mess of your handbag. Surprisingly, mesh shoes are a look I can get behind. This season’s trendy mesh Alaïa flats—worn by stars like Katie Holmes, Jennifer Lawrence, and Dakota Johnson—are a chic alternative to a summer sandal that also reveals your bare feet. But it’s the mesh-handbag trend that has me distraught. What’s in my bag is for me to know and for you not to find out.
Think about it: Why do you, a perfect stranger, need to know what I carry around in my mundane day-to-day life? Must you really be privy to my secret stash of candy, my ten thousand CVS receipts, and my secret pineapple-flavored vape? Carrying around a mesh bag is basically an invitation into your disheveled mind—and as someone who enjoys keeping my secrets, I would rather step out with no belongings at all than put them on full display.
It’s not to say that I don’t think the mesh bag can be chic. Sure, if you’re only carting around a lip gloss, a sleek card holder, and your keys, then of course the see-through bag will look cool. (I actually found the little mesh pouches from Proenza Schouler’s spring 2024 collection to be quite darling.) Dua Lipa recently stepped out with an Alaïa mesh style, and her bag—barely filled with any belongings at all—felt like a fresh update of the classic shoulder-bag silhouette.
But, personally, I could never. I schlep around far too many random items on the daily—Face mist! Gum! Eye drops!—to ever be able to pull the look off in an effortless way. Maybe I should take the mesh-bag trend as a call to action to streamline my life and to become more of a minimalist who only enjoys the daily essentials. But, honestly, I don’t want to change my chaotic self (I love excess, sue me), and I’d rather keep my constant sense of disarray a secret. So, please, fashion: Enough with the mesh! Let me be a mess in peace.
