From Hardware Stores to Fashion—What is the Rope Accessory Trend?

Fashion is always entangled with people’s everyday lives. In a literal sense, this comes down to the way we regularly interact with clothes. But the most enduring designs are the ones that derive inspiration from the way we move throughout the world and go about our daily adventures.

Cartier’s Aldo Cipullo took influence from screwdrivers when creating the French jeweller’s Juste Un Clou bangle. At Bottega Veneta, Mattieu Blazy designed leather totes that rival the designs of plastic shopping bags. Karl Lagerfeld even conjured up a supermarket for Chanel’s grocery run-esque autumn/winter 2014 collection. The latest mundane trend to get the high-fashion treatment? Paracord.

Indeed, rope accessories are on the rise this year. The motif takes a type of utilitarian nylon cable and renders it in an array of settings incongruous for its purpose—swishing on the handle of a designer bag as a bag charm, securing your heel in place when wearing a pair of luxury sandals, providing a place for a pendant to hang on a long jewellery. From hardware stores to high fashion, this is one practical accessory fashion people can’t stop loving.

What is the Rope Accessory Trend?

The rope accessory trend owes its origins to Miuccia Prada who, for Miu Miu’s spring/summer 2024 collection, paraded a series of twine trinkets down the Paris Fashion Week catwalk. “Prototypical ideas of clothing hold significance,” the luxury brand wrote at the time in the collection presentation’s accompanying press release. To translate, Miu Miu showcased a range that reversed pieces to their essence.

“Garments devised for specific purposes, functions and events are here remixed in unanticipated combinations,” they added, explaining the rationale for pairing labelled polo shirts with bubble skirts and sandals that look more in place on a river bed than they do on the runway.

At a time when fashion was fixated with football, remember this was just off the back of micro trends like “blokette” and the FIFA Women's World Cup, the emergence of the rope accessory trend served as a stylish athletic-inspired successor.

Instead of the pitch, the rope accessory trend takes us to the carabiners of rock climbers and boulders, the straps fixed to surfboards and the fastening of camping tents. Now, this motif is taking over the high street.

The trend brings an air of practicality to dressing. The material itself is sturdy, but in this setting adds an element of irony to your look because of how out of context they are when worn to relaxed long brunches or coffee at a farmer’s market.

Any well-dressed person knows the secret to an intriguing outfit is balancing contrast, and this trend succeeds in bridging polish with a sportif flair. It’s something that we see Scandi women do so well too, pairing all-weather cargo pants with a pretty sequin top. While our lifestyles lean more towards coffee runs than ultra marathons, who's to say we can’t spice it up every once in a while with a piece borrowed from these outdoor activities?

From the long ‘90s fashion cord necklaces to the rope sandals we’ll see dominate throughout the season, keep scrolling ahead for the best rope accessories of 2025.

Shop the Rope Accessory Trend

The Rope Accessory Trend on the Runway

Style Notes: Miu Miu is masterful at packaging the unsaid to the mainstream. Case in point: showcasing their models with bandages wrapped around their feet.

Style Notes: Bottega Veneta took a mild stance on embracing the rope accessory trend by adding a knot to the handle of their leather bags on its autumn/winter 2024 runway—the penultimate showcase with Matthieu Blazy at the helm.

Style Notes: Isabel Marant brought the rope acceosry trend to ready-to-wear in her spring/summer 2025 runway.

Style Notes: The bag-on-a-rope trend is the perfect summer accessory.

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