If I can take you back along the memory lane of holidays past, beach attire was very much a baggy oversized T-shirt you were happy to sweat in, and whatever Millets floral cool bag/market basket/Tesco bag for life you could ram into an easyJet locker. Fast forward to our hyper-visual, super-brag status era and how things have changed. Lounging around on the sand now requires an aesthetic mood and carefully curated style persona. I can remember being aghast the first time I flopped on Pampelonne beach, that heavenly strip of pampered St Tropez princesses, and saw a Louis Vuitton carry-all being dumped next to a lounger holding children’s spades. This now feels commonplace. We have arrived at a point where the humble beach bag has morphed into a luxury play, or in the words of Libby Page, Net-a-Porter’s market director, “Excess-ories”.
