Michael Kors Purse Leather

MICHAEL Michael Kors has a perception problem, especially when it comes to accessories. Selling expensive handbags is always a bit of a paradox; a brand has to sell enough of them to maintain its bottom line and please investors while still making consumers feel like they are buying something that's at least a little bit rare and aspirational, and once a brand reaches a certain point of critical mass, the only direction for it to go is down. Even when bags are objectively attractive, fashion's classism rears its ugly head when people of more modest means start to acquire status markers that were once inaccessible to them.

When you combine that with a product mix that's allowed to get a bit stale, fashion shoppers get very skittish, which is, in my mind, a fair assessment of what's happened with public perception of MICHAEL Michael Kors bags over the past couple years. The brand hung on to things like logo charms and chunky gold hardware a little too long, and that, combined with the brand's aspirational-but-not-astronomical price point, made the bags seem like yesterday's news.

MMK is a huge brand that wants to please its customers, though, so I figured it wouldn't be long before the brand's handbag line tightened up and debuted some styles that felt fresh and relevant. Thankfully, I was right, and the Pre-Fall 2016 bags from MICHAEL Michael Kors give me hope for what's to come. Many of the new styles have ditched the familiar metallic charms and big hardware for a sleeker, cleaner, more modern aesthetic-they're the kinds of bags that a lot of women would be proud to carry to work, and many of them are even free of the familiar gold-lettered Kors branding.

One thing the new MMK bags do retain, thankfully, is the brand's accessible price point. Check out some of the best new arrivals below or shop the full lineup via Neiman Marcus. (If you're an old school Kors fan and want the logos and charms, don't worry-there's still a good bit of that going on this season.)