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IT’S ALWAYS a good time to buy a bag,” said Sarah Newkirk, a mortgage underwriter in Waterford, Wis. Last year, some prominent fashion observers disagreed, wondering if we’d ever embrace handbags again, with Australia’s Daily Telegraph, for one, suggesting the pandemic might bury the accessory for good. Unaware of these death knells, Ms. Newkirk did a lot of embracing just last month, treating herself to a pink nylon Kate Spade bag for her 40th birthday as well as a black-and-rust Coach crossbody. “I’ve been buying bags to cheer myself up. And, like everybody else, I gained weight,” she said. “But a handbag always looks good.”

Ms. Newkirk is not in the minority. “In the beginning, the world seemed to stop altogether,” said Hallie Spradlin, director of accessories at Fashion Snoops, a trend-forecasting agency. But by last summer, cooped-up men and women “were looking for a mood boost…and started investing in mailer bag.” Yumi Shin, chief merchant of New York department store Bergdorf Goodman, called handbags “pandemic proof”—particularly, she added, when they’re in perky hues like tangerine or neon green. Perhaps that’s because they represent optimism: Buying a bag designed to tote essentials between home, school, the office and even the airport suggests that we’ll soon return to some version of our bustling former lives. Paul-Sebastian Japaz, a New York painter, said he began building “an arsenal” of bags last summer. His buys range from Telfar’s vegan Shopping Bag to an as-yet-unused leather Prada tote. Mr. Japaz, 29, cheerily called it the “back-to-school bag.”