Are Chinese handbag brands set to dominate accessible luxury?

Chinese handbag brand Songmont grew sales 59% a year between 2021 and 2025. Coach, the global accessible-luxury leader, grew 13%. That gap, laid out in a new Bernstein research report, shows a cluster of domestic Chinese leather goods brands closing in on international rivals faster than almost anyone expected and threatening to squeeze the accessible-luxury tier from below. Five Chinese brands — Songmont, Qiuzhen, Grotto, Dissona and Bampo — posted a combined 51% compound annual growth rate on Tmall from 2021 to 2025, the report said. Categorywide, sales were flat. Domestic brands now hold 18% of Tmall’s handbag and luggage sales, nearly matching the 19% held by top international names. Songmont alone sold 1.3 billion RMB ($179 million) over the past 12 months, equal to its next two competitors combined. China’s ‘guochao’ boom “They are serious competitors,” Solca told Jing Daily in an interview. “They have great products and a strong value proposition. They started from the bottom, but they are working to build their brand equity. We should watch this space.” Volume, not price, drove the growth. Unit sales for the five brands grew 37% a year while prices rose just 10%, in line with the category. Most of their sales sit between 1,000 RMB ($138) and 3,000 RMB ($413). They lean hard on hero products: at most brands the top 10 SKUs account for 60% to 70% of sales, well above the 13% at Coach. Songmont is the exception, with its top 10 SKUs at 53% and a deliberate push into higher price points. Its average selling price climbed from about 1,600 RMB ($220) to 2,200 RMB ($303) over the past year, according to Jiemian News, citing consultancy Lijin. The brand disputes a simple “price increase” reading, noting its classic Gather bag still sells at its 2019 launch price of 1,980 RMB and that the higher average reflects pricier new lines. Songmont’s GMV rose 340% YoY in May, Jiemian reported, and its annual repeat-purchase rate stands at 42%, up 12% after the price adjustment. Unlike many Western brands, these companies design, source and manufacture within China’s mature leather goods supply chain. That shortens development cycles, lowers logistics costs and frees up investment for materials and design rather than wholesale markups. Many also run a digital-first, direct-to-consumer model that avoids the cost of large international retail networks. Social platforms show the same divide. On Xiaohongshu (also known as RedNotes), the hashtag #Songmont had drawn roughly 220 million views, against 25.5 million for #Polène, the French label often cited as Songmont’s Western counterpart. “Gen Z are digital natives who primarily discover new brands through social platforms,” commented Vera C. Wang, who founded slow fashion handbag brand Verafied in 2017 after moving to New York from China. That attention is by design. The brand runs a podcast about its target customers’ lives, not its products. Its stores draw on natural landscapes such as canyons and rock terraces. It staged a pop-up at Paris Fashion Week in 2024 and returned in 2025. The strategy borrows from the playbook European maisons have used for decades: build culture, not just product Competitors or a China lane The question is whether these brands push further upmarket. “They are still very far from the top end brands [Chanel, Hermès, Dior] and even the mega-brands [LV, Gucci, Prada],” said Solca. “It is a very long way to the top. I wouldn’t sit on the edge of my seat waiting for Chinese brands to compete in the high-end. Even if they have successfully expanded below $1,000.” Bernstein’s report backs that view. The pressure falls hardest on accessible luxury players like Coach and Longchamp, which sit in the same price range as the Chinese challengers. Hermès, Dior, and Louis Vuitton, with global scale and deeper brand equity, stay largely insulated. The report also pushes back on a nationalist read of the trend. Overseas brands still account for roughly half of Tmall’s top sellers. Chanel’s recent bloom under creative director Matthieu Blazy, and continued strength at Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels, show that value-for-money and product fit drive sales, not country of origin. The real question is how much of the middle Chinese leather goods brands will claim before the brands at the top have to respond.

Are Chinese handbag brands set to dominate accessible luxury?

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Are Chinese handbag brands set to dominate accessible luxury?

How Bottega Veneta weaved China’s forever it bag