Norwegian striker Erling Haaland is used to attention. He is six foot five inches tall, with shoulder length blond hair that loudly indicates his Viking ancestry. He is also ranked among the world’s best footballers and led his country’s men’s team to its first World Cup appearance in nearly three decades. But a couple of weeks ago, stylist and TikToker Jack Savoy pointed out another thing Haaland is known for: his collection of Hermès bags.
“Have you seen Erling Haaland’s custom Birkins?” Savoie said this in a video that quickly went viral. – Baby, buckle up.
“Okay, the first thing I have to say is they’re not all Birkins,” Savoie said in a phone interview. Many Haaland bags are actually Haut à Courroies (HAC), the model on which the Birkin is based, but with a slightly taller and narrower profile. However, this in no way detracts from the Haaland collection.
In the video, which has received more than 10 million views, Savoie spends several minutes sorting through the soccer star’s collection. There’s the HAC “Endless Road” special edition he carried when he disembarked from the plane in North Carolina before the World Cup. The bone-colored bag features a patchwork of blue and gray leather for a mountain road vibe. There’s a moss-colored canvas HAC and a black-and-orange checkerboard HAC, and he’s even been spotted with girlfriend Isabelle Haugseng Johansen’s Birkin 25 tucked into his HAC 50. “He was folded into Birkins, it was so chic,” Savoie said.
Haaland isn’t the only footballer to love Hermès: Argentine superstar Lionel Messi has a pocketed, embellished HAC 40 truck that he travels with, while Dutch defender and fashion aficionado Virgil van Dijk has a gray leather version. David Beckham also seems to have a small collection of XL bags.
At the World Cup you can see a variety of fashionable bags. The French men’s team – one of the favorites to win the entire tournament – arrived with HAC, as well as bags from Chanel and Louis Vuitton. French striker Marcus Thuram carried a bright green suede Chanel flap tote in collaboration with Pharrell Williams, while Ryan Cherki carried a Hermès Kelly Maxi tote bag.
But Haaland’s enviable collection has sparked a new round of debate about men and innocent handbags. The juxtaposition of the supreme masculinity of the professional athlete with the traditionally feminine symbols of the luxury handbag seems to capture something of the broader culture.
Photos of Haaland on the pavement posted on social media were riddled with homophobia and comments questioning the striker’s masculinity. “I will never understand why a grown man would want to carry a purse,” one Instagram user wrote.
Others were more supportive. “So that’s how I knew Haaland was the villain???” another commented.
“I think for so long people were told what they could and couldn’t wear, but there’s a shift now where people are saying, ‘I don’t care,'” Savoie said. “If it makes me happy, I’ll wear it however I want.” He points to the growing number of male athletes wearing expensive jewelry such as Van Cleef & Arpels on the playing field, even if certain pieces have more feminine associations.
The particular irony of something like the Hermès HAC being categorized as hyper-feminine is that the bag was created in the late 19th century as a bag for riding equipment, like the rest of the brand’s offerings at the time. The brand didn’t introduce bags specifically designed for women until many decades later when it expanded its offerings beyond leather goods. “I think there’s just a growing appreciation for beautiful things, not to mention gender,” Savoie said. “I don’t even know why these bags have floors.”
Despite all the talk about bag choices, Haaland doesn’t seem to be bothered at all. He scored a pair of goals in each of his first two matches at this year’s World Cup, making him only the sixth player ever to do so. Savoie said combining his physical prowess with his stellar taste only makes him more interesting to a wider range of people, haters be damned. “It just adds another layer to his knowledge,” he said.