Lamine Yamal and His Obsession with Handbags

Chanel, Hermès, Bottega Veneta, Gucci, or Louis Vuitton. At just 19 years old, Lamine Yamal has built up a collection of handbags that could easily rival the wardrobe of any fashion-obsessed celebrity—or even Carrie Bradshaw’s own closet.

This became especially clear during the 2026 World Cup. Lamine was spotted carrying a Gucci Horsebit 1955 Mini Bag, paired a pink Bottega Veneta Cubo with a second bag from the brand, carried a Chanel XXL Urban Essential and a Chanel Maxi Flap, and posted a photo on social media of a Hermès Birkin decked out with small charms: a PlayStation 5 controller, an octopus, the flags of Spain and Morocco, and even a miniature World Cup trophy.

A Chanel Flap Bag from the Coco Beach 2026 collection inspired by a clownfish; a pistachio-green Louis Vuitton Speedy P9; a Gucci GG Supreme travel bag; a Chanel Métiers d’art 2025/26 fanny pack; an orange Keepall 50; and a gradient Louis Vuitton Clutch Box. In September, she made it even more obvious by showing up at a national team gathering wearing not one, but two Chanel pieces at the same time.

And he doesn’t seem interested solely in owning the most expensive bag. There are colorful options, mini sizes, charms, layered designs, and styles that for years would have been confined to the “women’s handbag” category. Lamine wears them nonchalantly. Which, considering who’s behind his latest looks, starts to make a lot of sense.

This summer, Pilar Vila—Rosalía’s sister and one of the figures who has worked for years on the singer’s aesthetic image—revealed that she had started styling the soccer player. “I’ve been styling Lamineeeeee,” she wrote as she shared some of the looks she had worked on. Among them were several of the bags that had generated the most buzz in recent months: the Chanel tweed shopping bag, a green Mini Kelly from Hermès, and the gray HAC à Dos from the French fashion house.

La Pili understands well the power of building a recognizable visual identity around someone that transcends their profession. We’ve seen this for years with Rosalía: clothes aren’t just something to put on before leaving the house, but another tool for building the universe of a public figure. Now, setting aside the differences between a pop star and a soccer player, that same logic is beginning to emerge around Lamine as well.

He had previously worked with Ana Sotillo, a stylist who argued precisely that dressing him didn’t mean erasing what connected him to the kids of his generation. Vila’s arrival doesn’t seem to do away with that idea, but rather takes it in a different direction: streetwear, yes, but mixed with Chanel, Hermès, Dior, or Louis Vuitton.

In contrast to the prevailing trends of “quiet luxury” and discretion, luxury here is on full display: logos, color, jewelry, and instantly recognizable handbags. It makes sense for a generation that grew up watching Supreme collaborate with Louis Vuitton, Pharrell transition from music to heading the fashion house’s men’s line, and soccer players turn the tunnel, the airport, or a team gathering into a new runway. And while for years the watch was the ultimate status symbol for soccer players, the handbag now seems to be challenging it for that spot. A Rolex or a Richard Mille shows how much you can spend; a Chanel, a Birkin, or a Bottega Veneta also shows how you want to look.

Inés García, his partner, has also made handbags—often Lamine’s—a central part of her looks—Loewe, Gucci, or Chanel—and the two have even coordinated their outfits, fueling comparisons to David and Victoria Beckham. They don’t need to share a closet: they share a sense of style.

But perhaps the most surprising—yet also the most contemporary—aspect of Lamine is the ease with which he disregards the gender of these objects. A Chanel doesn’t have to be masculine for him to want to wear it. A Birkin can be adorned with charms, a Bottega can be pink, and a Flap can be paired with a national team tracksuit—and it’s perfectly fine. After years of hearing the industry say that fashion no longer needs gender, perhaps one of its most compelling images didn’t come from a runway, but from one of the world’s best soccer players arriving at a training camp with a Chanel slung over his shoulder.