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Over the past decade, as I’ve curated this annual list of best bags, there’s been a strong focus on utility. But this year, bag designers are eager to create bags that make a statement, while also improving women’s lives with useful features. In some ways, the bag industry is coming full circle. When I first started working on this list, the bag industry was dominated by big brands like Coach and Kate Spade that were more concerned with fashion than function. But then, a new generation of direct-to-consumer brands like Dagne Dover, Cuyana, and Senreve popped up, creating bags full of features like laptop and water bottle sleeves that helped women get through busy days. In some ways, these startups changed the entire universe of bag designs. Now, functionality is table stakes for bag designers, says Karla Gallardo, co-founder and CEO of Cuyana. The trick is creating a highly functional bag that’s also spectacular. Many new bags on the market today are meant to stand out and allow the wearer to express herself. They come in architectural shapes, with interesting silhouettes. But they are all designed to get you from packed days at work to the weekend to your long flight. Here is our pick of the best work-life bags of 2025. And they all happened to be created by women-owned startups. Cuyana Mila Satchel, $798 If you’re looking for a bag that will make an impression, consider the Mila. It’s the kind of structurally gorgeous bag that will elevate your look as you go in to an important board or investor meeting. Cuyana spends many years designing bags, then testing them with customers to continue making tweaks and improvements. This particular bag is specifically designed for travelers. It has a travel sleeve that fits over luggage and importantly, it has a wide base so it can sit under the seat in front of you. And you can carry it two ways, with the wide short handles or with a strap that you can clip on. When it opens, everything is easily accessible and visible. There’s a slot for your laptop, as well as pockets for your phone and a clip for your key. You can even purchase a clutch that clips into Mila, so you can leave the big bag at home and take the smaller bag out to dinner. The whole system is designed to save you time on high-pressure days. Parker Thatch Jane, starting at $698 These days, with hybrid work, the amount we need to carry every day varies tremendously. Some days, you need to carry your laptop and files, the next day, you might just need a wallet and chapstick. Parker Thatch, a California-based label, believes your bag should magically shrink and expand depending on what you’re doing for the day. That’s precisely what it has achieved with its Jane bag. It’s made from soft, buttery leather that can fit a large laptop. But when the bag isn’t full, it collapses in an elegant way that gives you a relaxed, put together look. It comes in a wide range of colors to suit different aesthetics. The navy and espresso will fit into a more formal workplace, but you can also opt for leopard print, platinum, or camo with a red stripe if you want to go bolder. Clare V. Bateau Tote, $475 For another collapsible bag, Clare V.’s Bateau tote also has an amazing ability to transform. On the surface, it has a simple tote silhouette that can fit a laptop along with everything you might need for your workday. It has an over the shoulder strap for easy carrying. But when you don’t need to fill it up, can collapse the tote into a much smaller bag by bringing the two edges together. You can then carry it with short handles which happen to have the word Ciao on them, in a quirky bohemian style Clare V. is known for. This tote is very practical, but it is also fun and unique. As icing on the cake, this bag has a gorgeous texture that weaves two colors of blue together to create a checker pattern. Oleada Wavia Bag Plus, starting at $635 If you need to head to the office every day and are constantly on the road for business trips, you need a bag that will allow you to easily carry a lot of heavy items, including your laptop and documents. There are many travel brands that sell products that do the job, but they don’t look stylish. Oleada’s Wavia bag wants to be both. It has clean lines and a curved wave design, and it is packed with useful features. It can be carried as a backpack, a shoulder bag, a cross-body and a handbag. It has a luggage sleeve that allows you to put it on your rolling luggage. And even has a lock closure to keep the bag securely closed. Since the bag is designed around your laptop, it comes in two sizes: 13 inch and 16 inch. You can get it in either leather or a vegan synthetic material that comes in a wide range of colors. And importantly, no matter what material you choose, the bag is very light, weighing in at around 2 lbs. Linquist Hilma, $750 Linquist, a studio studio based in Rhode Island, creates bags that are inspired by works of art. The Hilma, for instance, is designed around by the pleasing shape of an ellipse, with an oval base and a gradually widening top. The bag is named after Hilma af Klint, a Swedish artist who was among the first abstract artists in Western art history. Her paintings are grounded in geometric shapes, exploring how these figures appear both in the body and in the natural world. The Hilma bag is big enough to get you through busy days, and it is designed to be worn for a long time. It is handmade in Rhode Island by a team of artisans, and crafted from full grain Vachetta leather that is not treated with preservatives or chemicals. Over time, the material is designed to patina as it is exposed to your hands and the elements. It comes in a wide array of colors, but because it is made in small batches, different colors are available at different times.
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E-Commerce
There are a few workplace topics that consistently bring out strong feelings, and performance reviews is at the top of that list. While most people would agree that its a good thing to have a tool to measure how employees are doing at their jobs, and a time for managers to discuss career advancement, very few seem to think that the way performance reviews are currently set up is working. In fact, a Gallup survey last year found that only 2% of human resource officers at major companies think their performance management system is working and just 22% of workers felt their review process was “fair and transparent.” One of the biggest complaints employees have about performance reviews is that they are so subjective. What it takes to be considered good at your job or eligible for a raise or promotion is often down to the opinions of just a couple of people. That means its a fertile ground for bias.So, if both employees and leadership think performance reviews are broken, could artificial intelligence be the magic bullet that fixes it? The new crop of startups selling AI-powered performance management tools certainly thinks so. But is it just swapping human bias for AI bias? Is something as nebulous as being “good at your job” quantifiable? And are humans ready to be evaluated by a robot? On the latest episode of The New Way We Work, I spoke to Bryan Ackerman, head of AI strategy and transformation at the management consulting firm Korn Ferry. He explained the benefits and drawbacks of using technology in both performance reviews and layoffs. Ackerman says that when considering introducing AI into performance reviews its important to start by asking the right questions: What is the fundamental thing we’re trying to change? There are lots of pain points with performance reviews, but AI isnt suited to fix them all. Here’s what it can do. How AI can help the performance review process Efficiency: One of the most straightforward ways that AI can help improve the performance review process is efficiency. Ackerman notes that managers can use generative AI to help draft reviews from their notes, but its only good as a starting point. Since the manager still needs to edit the draft to make it meaningful, that can end up not really saving any time.On both the employees and manager side, AI is good at putting in data and quantifying it (for example sales numbers) but again, its subject to the quality and accessibility of that kind of data. Making reviews more understandable: One of the biggest issues with performance reviews is how subjective and arbitrary ranking systems feel. Ackerman says there’s potential for AI to help employers to standardize and be more transparent about rankings and use AI note taking apps to help serve as a jumping-off point for conversions. Assistance with career development: Ackerman thinks the most useful way that AI could help in performance reviews is by using it as a way to get reviews back to their original intention: as a career development tool. AI has the potential to help managers deliver better and more effective feedback, he says. What AI cant help with There are pitfalls to using AI in performance reviews, Ackerman says, especially if you’re relying on it too heavily. It can give you too much data to work with, or create more of a problem than it solves, if the data quality isn’t great, he says. The question [is] are we making a manager’s life easier or harder?Relying blindly on AI also has the potential to exacerbate the problems with performance reviews. Is adding more data into the mix, making this process easier and more efficient and more consistent and safer and [with] less bias? Or is it just adding complexity that then the manager is somehow supposed to still make sense around? he says.The bottom line is to not remove the human conversation and nuance from the process and instead use AI as a tool to help where it can.Listen to the full episode for more on the pros and cons of introducing AI into the review process, where he thinks things are going in the next few years, and if AI will be used in layoff decisions. You can listen and subscribe to The New Way We Work on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, RadioPublic, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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E-Commerce
After 23 years as part of advertising and marketing services holding company IPG, creative agency R/GA bought back its independence through a new partnership between R/GAs global management and private equity firm Truelink Capital. It marks the official announcement of a move reported by AdAge earlier this month, and after leaks about a potential sale emerged last summer. The management team leading the agency back to private business is headed by R/GAs global CEO, Robin Forbes, and chair and global chief creative officer Tiffany Rolfe. Truelink Capital is also an investor in marketing tech companies Flipp and Ansira, as well as experiential marketing firm GES. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. R/GAs current major global clients still include Google, Samsung, Moncler, TurboTax, Nike, and Eli Lilly. The move comes as IPG awaits approval of its merger with fellow public holding company Omnicom, which would create the worlds largest advertising services firm. R/GAs new partners at Truelink have established a $50 million Innovation Fund for a boost in new skill sets and talent, as well as acquisitions for new capabilities, emerging tools, and platforms. The agency is also establishing a Strategic Advisory Council of senior marketing and technology executives to support emerging AI client transformation opportunities across multiple sectors. Forbes and Rolfe spoke exclusively to Fast Company about the deal and what it means for the agency. Both focused on the age-old industry debate between the freedom and flexibility to innovate in independence versus ultimately being a cog in a much larger publicly traded machine. It made sense that, for the kind of company that we are, we needed to ensure we can change how we work and the model that we deliver to clients with more autonomy, says Rolfe. To really look at a longer horizon for how we think about our business. R/GA made its name and reputation through its innovative work for brands during the first digital revolution, and Forbes and Rolfe say this new iteration of the agency is aiming to use that DNA to forge its future in the AI age. The company has been investing in AI-related tech for the past decade, particularly through its venture arm with companies like Reply.ai and Clarifai. This moment is for us to really accelerate the evolution that we’ve been working on for some time of both the services that we offer, but also the way we’re doing our work, says Forbes. A new day one Its no secret that over the past few years, IPGs digital agencies, including R/GA, have struggled financially. As other holding companies have done in recent years IPG has sold and consolidated many of its agency holdings. Last year, it sold once-hot agency Huge to private equity firm AEA Investors, and sold agencies Deutsch New York and Hill Holliday to Attivo Group. R/GA has faced multiple layoff rounds and executive departures in recent years, after two decades of leading in digital advertising and brand work. Among many other things, this is the shop that created Nike Plus (2006), the viral Straight Outta Compton campaign for Beats By Dre (2015), and won the Super Bowl for Reddit with a five-second ad (2021). There is no single reason that the agency was considered extraneous by IPG, but the leak of an impending sale last summer actually created a silver lining for Forbes, Rolfe, and the rest of the leadership. The process of buying back the agency could be done in public, and they could talk to clients about the implications and opportunities out in the open. The response from both its employees and clients was positive, which gave the team confidence and momentum in speaking to potential suitors. Now, Rolfe says that this is like a new day one for the agency that provides the opportunity to become a 48-year-old startup. We have the legacy of experience and knowledge, but now we get a little bit of a refresh, she says. There’s this moment now where you can disrupt the idea that you have to be this big, scaled holding company size to address Fortune 500 clients. Or if you look at startups, what are many missing? What can’t they do? And I think we have enough scale but can still be agile. We have real deep experience with Fortune 500 types of scaled problems, and we can address that and build teams in a really modern agile way that allows us to address a lot of different needs. New venture In any instance where a company embarks on a major shift like this, you will hear words like reinvention, reinvigoration, and the like. But what makes this more tangibly intriguing is the $50 million fund the agency has to work with to actually put concrete moves behind those words. Forbes says the focus of the fund is on three distinct areas. First, new hiring and training in order to upskill its talent base and augmenting its current talent with new kinds of skill sets. Second, product development in the form of blueprints or accelerators for improved and innovative work, that can result in IP and other assets. And third, building in new capabilities through acquisition. We’re really excited about the concrete commitments to actually deploying capital in the business to accelerate this growth and this transformation mission that we’re on, says Forbes. It’s extra fuel to accelerate some of the things that we’ve been wanting to do, and feel are really important to do quickly.
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E-Commerce
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