The Briefcase Is Back on Screen. Who Is Actually Carrying One?
A briefcase has one job. It keeps paper flat, dry and together between one room and the next. For about a decade that job looked finished, handed over to a laptop sleeve and a backpack, and the bag itself became shorthand for a dull career.
In 2026 it keeps turning up anyway. It appeared in set photos from a Manhattan film shoot, in a fashion writer’s January column, in an NFL player’s Instagram post. The more useful question is who is carrying one once the cameras go away.
A trailer, a pinstripe vest and a bag from 1987
The loudest evidence came from a sequel. When production on The Devil Wears Prada 2 got under way, set photos showed Anne Hathaway’s Andy Sachs crossing a New York street with a black leather messenger-style briefcase, buckled flap on top. Marie Claire identified it in July 2025 as a vintage Coach Metropolitan, a style it says dates to 1987 and trades secondhand from about $250. Coach then listed the same style through its Re(Loved) resale program at $895. By the magazine’s account, it sold out in minutes.
Grazia read the choice as a character note. Andy had left her intern wardrobe behind and now dressed like an insider, quieter and with fewer logos. In the writer’s words, the best style is the one with history behind it.
The film itself pushed the conversation well past fashion pages. According to Variety India, 20th Century Studios announced that the trailer drew 222 million views in its first 24 hours, the most for any trailer the studio has released. The film opened May 1, 2026.
One caution. The evidence for the briefcase is set photography from 2025. Whether the bag made the final cut is not something the sources reviewed here confirm.
What the bag was up against
The reputation problem is old. In February 2007, Vogue’s Filipa Fino put the case against it in two sentences: “What’s exciting about a briefcase? Not much.” Film did the rest. In Working Girl a brown briefcase is the welcome-to-work present, and in Pulp Fiction and Bullet Train it becomes a vault on a handle, holding cash or something glowing. Either it is a joke about drudgery or a plot device. Almost never is it an accessory somebody chose.
PurseBlog’s Sajid Bin Mohammad argued in January 2026 that this might be the year the verdict flips. The reasoning is cultural more than practical: after a stretch of what trend forecaster WGSN labeled therapeutic laziness, offices and runways have swung back toward suits, pinstripes and Oxford collars. If “eclectic grandpa” can be a look, the piece asks, why not the briefcase?
The same article points to a costume detail in Bugonia. Designer Jennifer Johnson dressed Emma Stone’s executive as a picture of wealth in its most recognizable form, and the outfit finishes with a briefcase-style doctor bag. Put that next to Andy Sachs and a pattern appears. Studios now use the briefcase to say this person has arrived.
Who is actually carrying one
Costume departments are one audience. Offices are another. Going by the reporting and by what readers say, five kinds of carrier keep appearing.
The lawyer. One attorney, commenting under the PurseBlog piece, described a thick brown briefcase bought in a first year of practice. Hearings mostly run on Zoom now, so it comes out for rare in-person court dates and for laptop travel. The commenter admitted the slim black styles look better, then explained why the heavy one stays: it swallows binders, a laptop, a water bottle and snacks. That is a practical case with no fashion in it. The courthouse version of the story is covered in The First Monday in October and the Lawyer’s Briefcase.
The corpcore dresser. Fortune described corpcore as traditional office clothing reworked with unusual tailoring and eccentric accessories, and noted that retailers such as Everlane and PrettyLittleThing had begun giving it its own shopping sections. A structured bag is the natural last piece of that outfit, and it is why the briefcase now shows up in photos of people who do not carry paper.
The athlete. PurseBlog’s December 2025 roundup of what NFL players carried into stadiums includes Tyrod Taylor with a Bottega Veneta Getaway briefcase, taken from his own Instagram post. The tunnel walk works as a runway, and a briefcase reads as a suit without wearing one.
The first-job worker. PurseBlog says Gen Z will make up 30 percent of the workforce by 2030. That is the author’s figure, and it was not checked against a labor statistics source for this post. The point it supports is plausible: a generation that learned workplace style on video apps is now buying the objects it saw there.
The commuter with paper, devices and a long day. This is the least glamorous carrier and the one the trend depends on. A professor’s teaching day, a three-day office week, a flight with a laptop and a signed contract. These people need the bag whether or not it is in style. If the trend collapses next spring, they will still be carrying.
What the video version leaves out
Short-form video flatters the briefcase. A tailored suit, a structured bag and a slicked-back look all fit into a nine-second clip.
Fortune’s reporting adds a check. Marina Santo of Fourth Floor told the paper that corporate attire should never really change, and etiquette coach Myka Meier advised dressing for the brand and industry you work in. Commenters on those clips, the piece notes, also questioned whether the influencers hold traditional office jobs at all.
That tension is the honest answer to the headline. The people who post the briefcase are not always the people who need it, and the people who need it rarely post. Both groups are real. They simply want different things from the same object.
What a bag has to do after the trend moves on
Here the 1987 Coach matters more than the sequel does. A bag from that year is selling out in 2025 because it lasted: the leather stayed sound, the hardware held, the shape survived. Nobody wants a trend bag that falls apart within the decade the trend runs.
The same test applies to a new purchase. Structure that holds when the bag is full. Hide thick enough to carry weight and take scuffs. A strap-and-buckle closure that can be re-stitched rather than replaced, which is why it has outlasted every alternative. Cost spread across a decade of use, as worked out in What a Leather Briefcase Costs Per Year of Use, looks very different from cost on a receipt.
Marcellino NY makes English bridle leather briefcases to order, with lead times of roughly six months, because that leather and that construction are what keep a bag in service for decades. The longer story of how the form got here is in The Evolution of the Leather Briefcase, and the oversized-bag side of 2026 is in Big Bags Are Back.
The briefcase after the cameras leave
Trends end. The lawyer’s thick brown bag will outlast this one, and so will the commuter’s.
Andy Sachs may have picked up a 39-year-old briefcase for the look. Everyone who keeps one for ten years will have picked it for the work.
Sources
- Marie Claire: vintage Coach bag trend and Devil Wears Prada 2
- Grazia: Coach vintage Metropolitan briefcase
- Variety India: Devil Wears Prada 2 trailer views
- PurseBlog: Could the Hottest Accessory for 2026 Be the Briefcase?
- PurseBlog: What NFL players carried, Weeks 11-14
- Fortune: Gen Z, corpcore and office siren on TikTok
