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In New York City, the shopping bag you carry around says almost as much about you as your shoes — sometimes more.
From thrift stores and grocery aisles to luxury department stores to an Upper West Side family institution, reusable shopping bags have quietly become the city’s most democratic status symbols — swung over shoulders like Birkin-adjacent badges of honor.
In a city where everyone tries to look effortlessly cool (and eco-conscious while they’re at it), Gothamites are hitting up stores not just for what’s on the shelves, but for the bag they’ll carry out.
As Eddie Reyes, founder of Jersey City’s vintage hotspot ConSHINEment, told The Post: “Because we are a transit city, totes act like our glove compartment in a car.”
Reyes noted that these days, most people on the go stash their essentials — books, water bottles, sometimes even laptops — in reusable bags instead of purses because of their practicality.
These inexpensive, eco-friendly bags hold far more than a typical handbag — while also doubling as a walking billboard for the store shoppers love.
Adding to that point, NYC-based stylist and fashion designer Lamel “Melly” Adkins, founder of luxe clothing brand Merci Dema, told The Post that reusable shopping bags “don’t just carry items, but rather, identity.”
“The bag becomes one of the stories the person is already telling,” he added.
If you’re strutting around NYC sporting one of these bags on your shoulder, here’s what it says about you.
Trader Joe’s: The $3 tote that thinks it’s luxury
Trader Joe’s reusable bags have transcended grocery duty and entered full-blown fashion lore.
Limited-edition drops, seasonal mini totes, and social media-fueled sellouts have turned the simple $3 canvas tote bag into a cult collectible. The Wall Street Journal reported that resale prices on e-commerce sites such as Depop and eBay have reached as high as $50,000 for overseas shoppers, since there aren’t any international Trader Joe’s stores.
Here in NYC, the person carrying one of these coveted totes might be a Williamsburg nature-loving, Birkenstock-wearing girl who works at a nonprofit art space, a broke Union Square student who bought it as a necessity, or a Chelsea grandmother who has zero awareness that her tote is trending.
Whatever the case, the message is clear: Trader Joe’s isn’t just a grocery store — it’s a lifestyle.
“Some people don’t and would never carry a Trader Joe’s tote as their daily bag,” Adkins explained to The Post. He added that others, however, “will wear it with everything, all week long.”
That contradiction isn’t a “problem,” he continued, but rather, “proof that fashion is becoming and has always been becoming more personal, more plural, and more honest.”
L Train Vintage: Affordable chaos, cultural currency
Named after the subway line that fueled Brooklyn’s creative migration, L Train Vintage, a relatively affordable Brooklyn thrift store, has been outfitting New Yorkers since the late ’90s — and its massive reusable bags are now practically uniform for a certain downtown demographic.
Spot someone with stick-and-poke tattoos, smudged kohl-rimmed liner, blush blindness, a wolf cut (that suspiciously resembles your uncle’s ’80s mullet), and an L Train tote slung over their shoulder, and congratulations: you’ve found a zoomer in their natural habitat.
Made from durable canvas (or polyester) and splashed with vintage transit graphics, the bag is as multifunctional as its owner — often used for groceries, pilates gear, or yet another thrift store haul off the Morgan L stop. Punk, but practical.
L Train Vintage took off in 1999 and now has seven locations — one in the East Village and six scattered throughout Brooklyn. And lately, its black #LTrainVintage bags are everywhere, with shoppers scooping up a $5 belt or trinket just to walk out with the store’s reusable tote.
As one social media user recently wrote while filming herself with one over her shoulder, an L Train Vintage bag is “the Bushwick Birkin.”
Another noted that “you know you’re in East Williamsburg” when you see a group of people “in black leather jackets holding big L Train Vintage bags.”
“An L Train Vintage bag suggests creativity and the ability to build an outfit across generations,” Adkins told The Post, adding that the bag “feels very Brooklyn — rooted in community, sustainability, and lived-in culture.”
Zabar’s: The Upper West Side heirloom
If she’s carrying a Zabar’s bag, she either just came from the lox counter — or she’s cosplaying someone who did.
She might be a Boomer rereading Nora Ephron’s “I Feel Bad About My Neck” between babka runs, a millennial Jewish dad loading up on rugelach and latkes, or a Gen Zer who grew up watching “Seinfeld” reruns with her Gen X parents and still fights the urge to quote “The Rye” every time she passes the bread aisle.
The Zabar’s tote doesn’t scream trendy — it whispers legacy.
It signals taste, tradition, and the quiet confidence of someone who knows that the best food in the city comes wrapped in wax paper, not hype.
Beacon’s Closet: Thrifted, but make it lore
Beacon’s Closet (founded in 1997) evolved alongside Williamsburg, transforming from a scrappy resale spot into a citywide buy-sell-trade vintage institution.
Its black reusable bags and tan canvas totes featuring the iconic baby-face-with-glasses logo are now instant signals that the carrier knows her way around a clothing rack.
Exit the Greenwich Village location, and the girl carrying this bag on her shoulder is likely an NYU or New School student wearing ‘90s Doc Martens or a coveted Gunne Sax dress destined for a cottagecore social media carousel post.
A shopper at the Greenpoint store screams millennial nostalgia — cheetah faux fur coat, Arctic Monkeys’ “Arabella” on repeat, former Tavi Gevinson’s “Rookie Mag” subscriber, and Alexa Chung worshipper energy.
Park Slope? Cool Gen X mom who idolized Chloë Sevingy and Fiona Apple in the 90s, pushing a stroller and now selling witchy skirts straight out of “The Craft.”
The Beacon’s bag doesn’t just say “I thrift” — it says “I know what’s good.”
Adkins believes that someone with this reusable bag “represents resale as taste, not thrift.”
“It’s curated, insider energy — someone who understands fashion systems, value, and discernment,” he said.
Ultimately, New York–based fashion industry expert and stylist Nina Lato says the city’s reusable bags (whether they’re from Trader Joe’s, Bloomingdale’s, Beacon’s Closet, L Train Vintage or Zabar’s) function as “quiet resumes.”
They reveal where you shop, what you value, and how tapped-in you are — all without a word.
It’s “very New York to turn something practical into a flex,” Lato told The Post, adding that “fashion here is less about logos and more about your lived-in taste.”
Bloomingdale’s Big Brown Bag: Old money, but make it recyclable
Introduced in 1973 by legendary designer Massimo Vignelli, Bloomingdale’s Big Brown Bag started as a practical solution for hauling pillows and blankets — and somehow became one of fashion’s most enduring status symbols.
Spotted in the wild today, the bag’s carrier might be an affluent boomer with an impeccable blowout and a personalized Guerlain Rouge G lipstick case (yes, the $43 one), a Gen X mermaid who learned English through Bloomingdale’s ads, or a millennial tourist who hit the Midtown flagship purely for the photo op.
Minimalist. Sans serif. Timeless.
The Big Brown Bag says: “I shop with intention — and disposable income.”
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