“You’re right,” Cooper tells the designer. “I am a basic bitch with a bag charm. In fact, do you wanna know why I got that bag charm? Because my friends and I were obsessed with Gossip Girl. We all wanted to be Serena van der Woodsen in her gorgeous, crazy-expensive couture. But the only thing we could afford from any of those designers was a clip-on charm from an outlet mall in Winnetka [in Illinois].”

“So … yeah,” Cooper says. “I guess that made us pretty ringarde. You think ringardes don’t respect designers. We worship designers so much that we spend all we’ve saved on a dumb accessory just to feel like we’re somehow on your runway. You may mock us but the truth is … you need us. Without basic bitches like me, you wouldn’t be fashionable,” Emily says.

Bag charms have always been an accessible entry point to luxury. Indeed they’re said to have existed since ancient Egypt, where trinkets were attached to bags as protection from bad spirits, and in mediaeval times they were a sign of status. But they’ve never been more in fashion than they are now.

Blame the cost of living – where a little luxury has great appeal as opposed to shelling out for a whole new bag – but the late Jane Birkin, eternal style icon, may actually be the reason.

Photos of her battered, over-stuffed Birkin bag (famously named in her honour) have been doing the rounds on social media in recent months as the ultimate inspiration for kooky, lived-in and personalised luxury.

As Birkin once told an interviewer for CBS Sunday Morning, “I just thought it was more fun to hang things off it, the baubles and bangles and beads, when you just walk around, they jingle and jangle, so it’s a happy sound”.

The appeal of a daily dose of happiness – and one that you can make yourself – is easy to understand. Especially, it must be said, in more straitened times.

As Dayna Isom Johnson, Etsy trend expert, told Woman & Home magazine, “At Etsy, we’ve noticed a jump in searches for bag charms recently. This playful trend is all about expressing yourself and having a bit of fun with your accessories and we’re here for it.”

The look was exemplified by attendees at the most recent fashion season with French influencer Leia Sfez spotted with an Hermès Kelly bag decorated with an “I Heart NY” key ring and other cute and kitschy charms.

It’s been spied on recent runways too. At Balenciaga spring/summer 2024 distressed bags were adorned with jumbles of key tags, heart-shaped carabiners, tassels and charms. While at Miu Miu, models carried overstuffed bags with key chains attached to them in an ode to busy women everywhere. There were bag charms (and foam fingers) attached to bags at Coach’s most recent show at New York Fashion Week: New York–themed keychains featuring pretzels, apples, taxis and even “I Heart New York” mug charms dangling from the bags. It was the ultimate ode to the Big Apple (whether you live there, or want a souvenir to prove you’ve visited). As Coach creative director Stuart Vevers wrote in the show notes, he was “inspired by the city as a setting for love stories old and new, the tension between the romantic and picturesque, and the real and the spontaneous that is unique here.”

Plenty of other designer brands have bag charms too, from a menagerie of cute little bunnies, elephants, shrimps and pandas at Loewe, to hearts, lockets and logos at Balenciaga, kooky KitKat and Rolo confectionary ones at Anya Hindmarch and teddy bears at both Max Mara and Burberry.

However, it’s perhaps even more fun to make like Jane Birkin and collect charms and treasures along your way. It’s an antidote to homogenous fashion, and personalising your bag by making it truly bespoke may well be the ultimate luxury. In any case, it’s anything but ringarde.