Since the dawn of the twenty-first century—specifically, the airing of the season three Sex and the City episode "What Goes Around Comes Around"—Fendi's sparkly bags have largely been the domain of style extroverts. People who, like Carrie Bradshaw and her offscreen acolytes, always announce their present with their outfit. People whose wardrobes are filled with light-refracting embellishments and look-at-me colors. People who, 25 years after the accessory became a pop culture icon, proudly toted their sequined Fendi Baguettes to the Italian fashion house's Spring 2026 front row (alongside equally extravagant rhinestone-dusted coats and feathered dresses).
On the Milan Fashion Week runway they came to watch, Fendi's It bag modus operandi hadn't completely changed course—the new collection overflows with impossible-to-miss Baguettes, encrusted with 3-D sequin flowers or woven from a lustrous, cable-knit silk. However, this time around, creative director Silvia Venturini Fendi also had something in mind for women who sparkle on the inside. I'll call them style introverts.
This season, Fendi matches a selection of its semi-sheer polka dot sets and razor-sharp pleated dresses with a new riff on the Peekaboo—its other iconic handbag silhouette, with a distinctive trapezoidal shapo—that takes its name literally. From afar, the Spring 2026 Peekaboos look like a dream for quiet dressers, from the neutral "goes with everything" leather to the practical, phone-wallet-keys-Kindle-sized compartments. But let the sides flail open, and they reveal a shock of pink and blue sequins, or chartreuse satin.
The contrast between these Fendi bags' outsides and insides is the accessory equivalent of learning your soft-spoken pottery instructor moonlights as a Fourth Wing-level romance writer: a little startling, but also weirdly delightful. A press release described the effect as follows: "The familiar is FENDI-fied."
Had the bags been carried shut by the models, no one at the show would sense what they held within. The plot-twist interiors embody what Venturini Fendi described in her show notes as a "colorful sense of ease": "It's not about a single definition but a fluidity between everyday life and exquisite craftsmanship." Nowhere is that duality more obvious than a bag that looks like it belongs in a boardroom on the outside, while revealing bachelorette-level sparkle on the inside.
More pared-back versions—with suede-and-leather interiors of slime green or peony pink—understand that, for some Fendi admirers, even the slightest bit of shine is too much. Even a Jil Sander minimalist could appreciate the fine lines here, while still getting an unexpected dose of color.
Of course, extroversion is a nuanced state. The most over-the-top bags can still contain surprises, too. One Peekaboo style arrives coated in plush, millennial pink faux fur, opening to reveal an even more intriguing, pixelated sequin interior. (Carrie, this one's for you.)
Maybe the takeaway isn't that some accessories speak louder than others. It's that bags, like people, are full of secrets—especially the ones that seem quiet on the outside.
