First ladies with bags of style: LAURA CRAIK reveals £90,000 designer arm candy on display in White House get-together

Being the wife of a world leader is always going to come with baggage. And on the evidence of their get-together this week, that baggage is some of the most expensive in the world.

When America’s First Lady Melania Trump hosted first spouses from 45 countries at the White House as part of her Fostering the Future Together initiative, all eyes were on an unprepossessing rectangular side table, groaning with the collective weight of some of fashion’s most coveted arm candy.

But then, when you are a member of the First Spouse Club, a high street handbag is hardly going to cut it.

The most popular brand on display on Wednesday was from French luxury fashion house Chanel, with designs including a cream lambskin quilted flap bag that retails at £8,850, a small black lambskin Shopping Bag, £4,080, and a classic black Chanel 25, £5,050, all clearly visible. 

Proving that burgundy is the new black this season was a Ferragamo ‘Gancini’ chain mini bag, £1,345, and a burgundy crocodile classic ‘sac de jour’ tote, £2,350, by Saint Laurent.

All were trumped in price, however, by a black Hermès Niloticus lizard Birkin, a rare tote estimated to cost in the region of £65,000, and was by far the most expensive accessory on the table. But not every bag on display cost as much as a luxury car. 

A quilted leather tote bag by Michael Kors would have cost a reasonable £380, while the most modest of all was a baby blue crocodile-effect suede trunk, by Brandon Blackwood, at £290.

Blackwood might be based in New York, but given Melania’s fondness for luxury European labels such as Dior and Hermès, it is unlikely that the bag belonged to her.

The existence of the ‘First Spouse Handbag Table’ was unveiled on X by ‘Flotus Report’, a social media account dedicated to ‘First Lady news and style reporting’.

Before you could say ‘credit crunch’, the internet went into meltdown. ‘I spy at least 2 Birkins and 1 Kelly,’ read one comment, alluding to two of Hermès’s coveted styles.

Given that a remaining 15 bags were of unidentifiable brands, a modest guess at the total cost of the bags on display would be around the £88,795 mark.

As for matching the bag to the spouse, among those in attendance at the two-day summit to discuss access to education and technology for children worldwide, were Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife Sara Netanyahu, who was pictured with the beige Chanel flap bag the previous day; Lavinia Valbonesi, First Lady of Ecuador, who was seen with a black Birkin; and Brigitte Macron, wife of French president Emmanuel Macron, who carried a £1,850 Lady Dior Pouch to the event.

Neither Valbonesi nor Macron, it seems, felt the need to leave their bag on the First Spouse Handbag Table.

While we may never know the stylish and fortunate owner of the lizard-skin Birkin, with world peace hanging by a thread, let’s just hope none of them went home with the wrong bag.