While most reach for a battered canvas tote when they're off to grind through a long day at work, Dua Lipa reaches for an £8,500 Chanel bag, slings it over one shoulder like it's nothing, and heads straight into the studio. In a previous interview with Vogue, she shared that she usually carries her laptop, wired headphones, a notebook, and hot sauce. It's no wonder she needs a bag that massive.
Newly married and clearly settling into a routine, the 'New Rules' artist has been spotted heading in and out of Electric Lady Studios in New York these past few days, the same black pebbled-leather Maxi Flap swinging by her side. It is now looking like an actual uniform, one fashion watchers cannot quite believe in its sheer normality.
Breaking Down the Uniform
Look closely, and the same pieces keep resurfacing. Oversized shirts, distressed denim, whether shorts or straight-leg jeans, and chunky sunglasses, worn with either Chanel ballet flats or simple flip-flops depending on the day. Nothing about this suggests 'styled'. Instead, it seems like a rotation of pieces she genuinely loves.
Since marrying Callum Turner, Dua's off-duty look has softened into a more relaxed style that resembles a 'borrowed-from-the-boys' aesthetic. Whether this shift is a nod to Turner's wardrobe or simply a reflection of her comfort in married life, it feels intentional. While the glamour of her touring years is on pause, something scruffier, cosier, yet still considerably chic takes its place, proof that comfort and style are not always at odds.
Chanel, Cover to Cover
The Maxi Flap is not a one-off purchase. Dua is also the face of Chanel's 25 bag, and over the past several months she has been photographed carrying at least four different Blazy-era Chanel pieces, including a small flap bag and a small shopping bag, alongside the ballet flats and sunglasses she now wears on repeat. That is a lot of pieces from one house to put down to coincidence.
Some of that is business. Ambassadors are expected to wear the brand, and Dua's ties to Chanel go back further than this studio era. But the styling itself tells its own story. Blazy made his name at Bottega Veneta championing exactly this kind of 'everyday luxury', scuffed-up, lived-in glamour rather than anything precious. That is precisely the vibe Dua is now carrying into the studio, and it marks a real pivot from the flashier, disco-era Versace moments of her 'Radical Optimism' cycle.
The Scuffed-Luxury Playbook
The scuffed-luxury trick is not new. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen built an entire aesthetic on letting pristine Hermès Birkins take a battering, carried through airports and off-duty errands until the leather told its own story. On TikTok, the debate has taken the same shape, one camp praising Dua's 'wealth whispers' nonchalance, the other calling out the absurdity of treating an expensive bag like a gym holdall.
By the time DL4 actually lands, that Maxi Flap will have earned every single mark on its pebbled leather. It is no longer just a luxury asset waiting for a red carpet, but a piece of studio equipment, absorbing the grit, coffee spills, and creative tension of a pop star at work.
