The New Must-Have It Bag? A Tote That Holds a Book (and Little Else)

Elle

4 hours ago

After years of appearing in campaigns for the likes of Celine, Chloé, and Chanel, it's only natural that Kaia Gerber would recognize the makings of a good bag. So when she released her own tote, it quickly garnered attention online and off. Its design, however, was of a different ilk than the designer pieces she'd often modeled: Made of natural canvas with a flat bottom and wide straps, this little bag was designed to hold 'your book, your phone, a highlighter, and nothing else.'
The book-sized tote—which reads 'Back to literature' on its front—dropped in January as a limited-edition product from Library Science, the book club that Gerber and social media strategist Alyssa Reeder officially launched in 2024. Originally released as a fundraiser for fire relief efforts in Los Angeles, the first run of the tote sold out. Since its restock, the Mini Book Bag is now available on Library Science's website for $35.
Literary tote bags—often emblazoned with the names of bookstores, the titles of classic novels, or the logo of a magazine—are no new sartorial fare. But the diminutive size of Library Science's bag made it stand out, along with its prescriptive product description. What more could you need from your bag, as long as it will hold a good book?
Plenty would answer: Not much. In the past several months, specifically book-sized mini totes have been cropping up around social media; in the aisles of libraries and bookstores; and out on city streets, where they might be recognized as literary status symbols.
In December of last year, the Los Angeles-based book event series Seen Library—which social media and community consultant Jordan Santos launched in 2021—sold out of its mini L.L. Bean totes embroidered with a 'Seen Library' logo (by graphic designer Maddy Pease) at its annual pop-up. In March, The Yale Review—the oldest continuously published literary journal in the United States—launched a similarly small bag, the phrase 'Little Magazine' screenprinted in bright pink font on the side. (The publication says it launched with a limited run and will likely have to place a restock order soon.) That same week, the art book publisher Pacific Books launched a merch collection with the French ready-to-wear label Soeur; it included, among other items, a white tote available in three sizes, embroidered simply with the word 'Books.'
'It's a very common thing in the independent publishing world to put 'books' on your merchandise,' says Pacific co-founder Elizabeth Karp-Evans. 'It's simply, I think, out of affinity and love.' It's as clear and direct a way to signal one's literary inclinations as can be imagined. And in an era when anyone can amass a stockpile of totes without much effort in regards to acquisition or curation, the selection of a very specific tote is an indicator of taste. When it comes to these totes, size really does matter.
While Pacific offers its totes with Soeur in three sizes—a large, weekend-trip-friendly option; a medium bag that can fit a laptop (ideal, Karp-Evans says, for a writer); and the mini, which can hold a couple books—it's the smallest offering that stands out the most, and not only for its novelty. 'The way [you] dress inspires how you want to move through the world and how you want to be seen,' Karp-Evans says. The philosophy behind the book-sized tote 'is really about waking up on the weekend and deciding that you're going to pick out one or two books that you love and make an effort to maybe go get a coffee, go to the park, and just sit down and read for an hour,' she explains. Think of it as a tool for literary wish-fulfillment—not just a signal to others about your purported intellectualism.
That kind of intentionality was also important to Santos, who brings readers together through Seen Library's book exchanges, book drives, giveaways, and pop-ups. At these events—which she's hosted at home in Los Angeles, as well as in New York, Paris, and London—book lovers can find their next read wrapped in creamy white paper and topped with a library check-out card offering clues about its contents. It's Santos's mission to spark connections and drive community among bibliophiles, given the solitary nature of reading as an activity and especially at a time when social media can foster feelings of isolation. For that reason, Seen Library's events are exclusively in-person.
It was at Seen's annual December pop-up in 2023 that Santos first started offering merch: embroidered Seen Library baseball caps. This past year, she rolled out tank tops and the iconic mini totes.
Santos was initially hesitant about introducing these items to her events. 'I work in social media and fashion and beauty, so I just see a lot of merch being created, and I feel bombarded and inundated with a lot of products,' she says. 'I don't want people to think I'm starting a brand but using books as a way to start the brand.' The only way merch would work is if it helped her to accomplish Seen Library's goal. It needed, then, to spark conversation.
Because Seen's embroidered totes were only available to shop in-person, Santos says that if a person is asked where they got it, they gain the opportunity to tell a person a story about the experience they had at the event. 'Versus, 'I clicked the 'shop' button on a website,' she explains. Attendees sporting the tote can explain what Seen Library is and open the conversation up to any kinds of discussions about books and reading.
Santos says the size of the totes, too, was purposeful. A smaller tote stands out in a sea of regular totes—which could more easily give someone a reason to get a new bag. It's also, of course, just the right size for a book, which could be helpful in literary habit-forming.
'When you're carrying it in your hand instead of over your shoulder, you see the book sticking out and you're like, 'Alright, it's right there.' It's either the book or the phone,' she says. 'Having it be so exposed, it's a reminder like, 'Hey, I'm here. Grab me, read me in line waiting for a friend.'' Santos herself is an avid proponent of the always-carry-a-book school of thought.
Will Franzier, digital director and managing editor of The Yale Review, is hopeful that the 206-year-old literary magazine sparks some conversation with its Little Magazine tote, too. The phrase 'little magazine' is one that the Review has long used internally. The historical term, Franzier says, refers to small-format magazines that publish a grab bag of literature, poetry, fiction, and criticism—all genres within The Yale Review's contemporary domain.
Merch is a relatively new output for the publication. It launched a simple, non-mini tote bag in 2021 after unveiling a rebrand that editor Meghan O'Rourke set into motion when she took the helm of the magazine in 2019—a time when the publication didn't even have a website. In addition to the mini tote launched earlier this year, Yale Review's latest product drop includes two baseball caps and two average-sized totes. But the mini option is, of course, the most exciting.
The idea came to the team when O'Rourke returned from a trip from London carrying a miniature tote bag from the beloved UK bookstore Daunt Books. 'She brought it to dinner one night and we both had the same thought,' Franzier says. 'A little tote bag for a little magazine.'
The 'little magazine' branding does err on the side of 'if you know you know,' but Franzier is encouraged by the thought that the bag could lead strangers to go down the rabbit-hole history of publications like the Review. 'Little magazines have historically been these really exciting places where essays and literature that maybe isn't being published in more mainstream literary publications can find a home,' he says.
He's delighted, too, by the literary world's late adoption of the mini-bag trend that he acknowledges came into fashion several years ago. In 2018, Jacquemus got the ball rolling with its viral Le Chiquito, and by the time its even tinier, meme-able Mini Chiquitos launched the following year, small bags sat on many a stylish person's shoulder. While petite purses have retained their popularity amid the rising dominance of larger bags, like The Row's Margaux and Coach's Brooklyn hobo, the shock factor of diminutive accessories has since faded—but a tiny tote, in particular, still has the power to stand out. 'I feel like everything that happens in the fashion world hits the literary world, style-wise, five years later,' Franzier jokes.
The tote's style isn't its only appeal, though. 'From a practical standpoint,' Franzier adds, 'I think it's a really charming idea to be able to just carry with you the book you're reading, your wallet and maybe one other thing, and go out for the day to the park.'
That idea fits seamlessly into the modern zeitgeist, which romanticizes logging off...or, at the very least, shifting one's scrolling habits off of Instagram to Substack or from TikTok clothing hauls to BookTok. It's not hard to find any number of memes evoking simpler times, before the 24/7 news cycle and certainly before the advent of push notifications. At a moment rife with endless distractions and subsequently burdened attention spans, a day at the park with just a book is a kind of Platonic ideal.
No wonder so many people are buying into the idea. New York City bookstore Books Are Magic has witnessed its mini tote—which it launched in July 2024—popping up frequently around its Brooklyn neighborhoods. The tote, a collaboration with artist Todd Colby, features the bookstore's name on one side, and a gentle suggestion on the other: 'Perhaps poetry could be of some assistance.'
To date, Books Are Magic has sold more than 1,000 of the bags. Marketing and events coordinator Tiffany Gonzales says that it's popular among many of the book clubs that meet in Books Are Magic. The elementary school crowd often carry it while scanning shelves with their caretakers, but plenty of adults use it as their go-too bag, too. 'We wanted to make a mini tote because I was tired of seeing my chic friends use their little Daunt totes as purses,' jokes BAM co-owner Emma Straub.
Daunt, it seems, might have been the originator of this trend: The store launched its first mini totes in 2016, in a limited range of colors, but has since expanded its offerings. 'As with our large bags, the idea initially was to give these away with book purchases over a certain level—where purchases were for children, or to families with children making large purchases—but the bags have quickly become popular sellers in their own right,' says Daunt manager Brett Wolstencroft. 'We hadn't anticipated this size becoming so popular with adults, but of course they are perfect for a book and a pair of sunglasses, say, and we've responded by adding more and more colors and recently adding metallic prints in gold and silver.'
At a time when the fashion world increasingly shares space with the literati—when Miu Miu hosts literary salons on Italian women writers in Milan and J.Crew sponsors a book club in New York—the aesthetic-ization of reading culture can seem dubious, or at least surface-level. Carrying a bag designed specifically for books, after all, does not make a person a deeper or more committed reader. But the intention behind these bags could not be clearer to the bibliophiles who have brought them into the world: You can't judge a book by its cover. 'I hope that when you see a book peeking out of a tote bag, it does result in some sort of conversation,' Santos says. 'If I'm at a coffee shop and I see someone reading a book, I'm like, 'Oh, I really like that book,' or, 'How do you like that book? That one's been on my TBR list.''