The Tory Burch Ella Crochet Tote Has No Zipper, No Pockets, and No Business Replacing Your Everyday Bag, and That Is Exactly the Point

Within Tory Burch's own Ella line, the nylon totes are the volume sellers and the crocheted ones are the seasonal indulgence, which is exactly how this white raffia version should be judged. It is hand-crocheted, not machine-loomed, which is visible in the small irregularities along the weave that a printed pattern would never produce. There is no warranty on it, which is standard for the category but worth knowing before anyone assumes designer handbags come with one.

The instinct to compare it to a Miu Miu or Dior raffia tote is correct, and it is also the bag's best argument. It borrows the same open-weave, hand-made look that made those bags a moment, at a small fraction of the cost, with longer straps that actually go over a shoulder instead of forcing a wrist carry.

The construction, honestly described

The body is paper raffia, hand-crocheted, sitting on a base and rim finished in faux leather. Tory Burch's own copy calls it "leather trim," and that phrasing has burned enough shoppers across the Ella line that it needs saying plainly here: it is polyurethane, not hide. At this price, on a designer label, that is worth knowing before checkout rather than after the box arrives.

There are no interior pockets. What it does have is a single small D-ring stitched inside, meant for clipping a keychain or a wallet strap so it does not vanish into the open cavity, and it is a genuinely smart touch on a bag with nothing else to organise around. The weave is loose enough to be semi-transparent, so whatever sits near the sides is visible from outside the bag, which is either a styling quirk or a small privacy problem depending on what gets carried. There is no zipper, no magnetic snap, nothing that closes the top at all.

Buyers cross-shopping by name alone should slow down here: Tory Burch's own listing puts this bag at 10.4 by 13.4 by 4.7 inches, and a third-party measurement matches those numbers exactly. Other retailers list a "Small Ella Hand Crochet Tote" closer to 11 by 14 by 5 inches, a real size difference and not just tape-measure noise. The smaller figures carry the stronger confirmation, but anyone buying from a listing other than Tory Burch's own should check the stated measurements rather than assume the name guarantees the size.

It carries more than "small" promises

Tory Burch's own marketing undersells this one badly, describing room for "a towel, sunglasses, and a water bottle." Load it for a real day out and it swallows a 13-inch laptop, a makeup pouch, sunglasses, a phone, a planner, business cards, a full-size pair of over-ear headphones, and a water bottle, with room still left over. That gap between the modest brand copy and the actual capacity is the single most useful thing to know before buying: this reads as a cute accessory and functions as a full tote.

The open top that makes it easy to load also makes it easy to lose things out of. Nothing with real value, a wallet without a strap, keys without the D-ring, a phone dropped in loosely, should go anywhere near the top of this bag on a crowded train or a packed beach. That is a fair trade on a resort day and a bad one on a commute, which is exactly why it belongs on the shortlist for a bag for travel only when the travel in question is a warm-weather trip, not a year-round carry-on.

Where it sits against Miu Miu, Dior, and the rest of the closet

Its real competition is not other Tory Burch bags, it is the raffia-tote wave that Miu Miu and Dior priced at four figures. The Ella crochet tote gets close to that look for a small fraction of the outlay, and its longer straps make it more wearable day to day than either of those runway versions. That is the win: same trend, real price, more usable strap drop.

Where it loses is against anything built for daily, structured carry. Anyone who wants one bag that closes, holds a laptop securely, and has an actual interior pocket for a phone should look at the Frye Melissa Shopper Tote instead, which trades the raffia romance for a zip-top leather build that works in a way this one deliberately does not. For anything meant to double as a work handbag, that structural gap is the whole decision.

Living with white raffia past the first wear

White raffia behaves the way white raffia always behaves: it picks up colour transfer from denim, sunscreen residue at the handles, and general grime faster than the black or natural colourways in the same style. Tory Burch's own care guidance for crocheted and leather-trimmed bags is to avoid harsh cleaners and keep the bag dry, which is a quieter warning than it sounds. It does not recommend hand-washing or submerging the bag, and that omission is worth taking seriously given the faux-leather trim at the base; soaking a bag built around a polyurethane structure is a good way to warp the one part holding its shape.

Store it in its dust bag, out of direct sunlight, stuffed with tissue to hold the base, and treat it as a between-May-and-September bag rather than a closet staple. That seasonal limit is not a knock invented here; the brand's own styling, the open weave, and the lack of any weatherproofing all point the same way. For anyone weighing whether a bag like this is worth the outlay at all, the honest answer sits in how the wider Ella line has performed for owners over years, not months, which is exactly the question whether designer handbags hold their value was written to answer.

None of that changes the core call: for four months of the year, on the right outfit, this is one of the better-dressed raffia totes available anywhere near its price.