Historic utility AND high fashion. 80-year-old LL Bean staple finds a new audience as a trendy bag
FREEPORT, Maine — Created by LL Bean 80 years ago to transport heavy blocks of ice, it’s now a must-have summer fashion accessory.
The simple, sturdy Boat and Tote canvas bag is still popular 80 years after its introduction, thanks to a social media trend of branding them with ironic or eye-catching text.
New Yorker Gracie Wiener helped kick it off by ordering her modest bags from LL Bean with the monogram “Psycho” and then “Prada,” the expensive Italian luxury brand, instead of just her name or initials, and posting about it on Instagram. Then others started showing off their own unique bags on TikTok.
Soon, it wasn’t enough to have a bag monogrammed with “Schlepper,” “HOT MESS,” “slayyyy,” or “cool mom.” Customers began testing the limits of the human censors in L.L. Bean’s monogram department, which banned profanity “or other offensive words or phrases,” with more provocative wordings like “Bite me,” “Dum Blonde,” and “Ambitchous.”
The surge was fueled by social media, as was the case with Stanley’s $2.99 cups and Trader Joe’s canvas bags that once sold for $200 on eBay, said Beth Goldstein, an analyst at Circana, a firm that tracks consumer spending and trends.
The tote’s resurgence comes at a time when budget-conscious consumers have been eschewing expensive handbags, whose sales have been declining, and the L.L. Bean bag fits the bill as a functional item that’s trendy precisely because it’s not trendy, she said. L.L. Bean’s regular bags retail for about $55, though some of the fancier versions cost more than $100.
“There’s a trend toward the utilitarian, the simple things and more accessible price points,” she said, and the personalization added to the appeal: “Status items don’t necessarily have to have designer prices.”
The L.L. Bean tote was first advertised in a catalog as Bean’s Ice Carrier in 1944 during World War II, when coolers were common. They then disappeared, before being reintroduced in 1965 as the Boat and Tote.
Today, they’re still made in Maine and can still carry 500 pounds of ice, but they can now carry much more—laptops, headphones, groceries, books, beach gear, travel essentials, and other everyday items.
Those sarcastic, pop-oriented statements transformed them into a snappy essential and helped them spread beyond Maine, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and other New England enclaves to places like Los Angeles and New York City, where fashionistas like Gwyneth Paltrow, Reese Witherspoon, and Sarah Jessica Parker are wearing them — but not necessarily with tongue-in-cheek remarks.
“It’s just one of those things that makes people laugh and it’s unexpected,” said Wiener, who started it all with her Instagram page @ironicboatandtote, which she started as a side hustle alongside her job as social media manager for Air Mail, a digital publication launched by former Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter.
The folks at LL Bean were both amazed and pleased by the continued growth. Over the past two years, the Boat and Tote has been LL Bean’s biggest contributor to new customers, with sales growing 64% from fiscal years 2021 to 2023, according to spokesperson Amanda Hannah.
The growing popularity is reminiscent of LL Bean’s traditional hunting boot, the iconic basic model for trudging through rain and mud that became a success among students in its own right a few years ago.