There’s something quietly intimate about asking someone to unzip their bag.
It’s a small act of trust – an invitation into the everyday rituals, the chaos, the preparedness, the personality. So I headed to the Deadly Ponies HQ to do exactly that: sit down with the team and find out what they actually carry to work, and which bag from the new Monster Mayhem collection is holding it all together.
Around the table sat Liam Bowden, Founder and Creative Director; Sighle, Head of Product and Planning (over five years deep with the brand); and Zoe, Art Producer and resident documentarian of nights out. Three very different roles. Three very different bags. Beyond the shared essentials – laptops, lip gloss – what spilled out told a far more layered story.
Part I: The Bag as Biography
Liam arrived with the MR VAULT TOTE in Black Suede – structured, weighty, deliberate. What emerged from it, however, felt more like a live feed into a creative director’s brain mid-week. Vitamin C sachets scattered across the table. A tape measure. Glasses wipes. Both wired and Bluetooth headphones – an unwillingness, perhaps, to commit to one era of technology. A half-eaten cookie. A protein bar. A Goyard pouch. Gifts he’s in the middle of collecting for his niece and nephew.
It was chaotic, yes, but not careless. There’s a difference.
The MR VAULT TOTE swallowed it all without protest – a quiet flex in capacity and construction. Liam chooses this bag not only because it looks right, but because it represents something much deeper: the engineering behind it. He speaks about the sampling process with pride – the iterations, the testing, the refinement required to get the structure just so. Carrying it to work now feels like carrying a finished argument.
Then there are the charms – an edit of memories clipped to the handle. A prototype leather charm that looks, admittedly, a little BDSM-adjacent. A Labubu picked up while shopping for his niece and nephew. A glittering Miami-stamped charm bought during a holiday phase of “embracing the Miami bling vibe.” And a sample from a collaboration that never eventuated, but survived because he liked it too much to let it disappear.
If the bag is engineered precision, the charms are pure instinct.
Zoe’s MR MIRO in Java tells a different story – one of sentimentality and soft structure. She bought it the moment it dropped, having watched it evolve from conception. There’s something satisfying about carrying a piece you’ve witnessed come to life.
Inside, her world feels beauty-led but entirely practical. A Poucher purchased in her first week at Deadly Ponies when she was still on the retail floor – a small relic of where she started. Her digital camera lives permanently in the bag, along with the essential dongle. “When you’re the friend with the digital camera,” she laughs, “you need to be able to send the photos ASAP.”
There’s an Instagram worthy comb – she’s known for disappearing on bathroom hair-combing breaks – and a Rhode pocket blush, used for touch ups and self proclaiming “blush blindness”. The detail that felt most telling, though, was her fragrance: Baccarat Rouge 540 by Maison Francis Kurkdjian, bought by her boyfriend without guidance from her or her friends. A risk that paid off. A green flag, she confirms.
What she loves most about the MR MIRO is its duality. Worn over the shoulder it feels polished; adjust the second strap and it softens into something more relaxed. It adapts – much like the role she plays within the team.
Sighle’s MR BANDIT TOTE MAXI in Dune Suede is perhaps the most composed of the trio. She describes herself as “old school,” and it shows – in the best way. Her weekly diary sits alongside her laptop, pages filled with handwritten to-do lists. There’s something reassuring about analogue planning in a digital office.
A Poucher Grande in Tamarillo acts as an internal organiser, corralling loose lip glosses, mints, and hand sanitiser. The surprise came in the form of two film cameras she’s been carrying for two weeks, waiting for the right moment – or motivation – to finally get them developed. They’ve become aspirational cargo.
She chooses the MR BANDIT MAXI for its functionality, calling it the perfect tote for a busy day. It doesn’t shout. It simply performs.
Together, the three bags feel like portraits – not styled, but lived in.
Part II: The World of Monster Mayhem
All three styles belong to Deadly Ponies’ Fall ’26 collection, Monster Mayhem – a world imagined through texture, colour, and a slightly mischievous lens.
Established in 2005 by Liam Bowden, Deadly Ponies has always balanced artistry with integrity, recently achieving both Toitū carbon-zero certification and B-Corp status. But Monster Mayhem feels particularly personal – a return to play.
Liam describes the inspiration in one word: monsters. Not the frightening kind, but the ones born from childhood imagination. He references the textures – horns, feathers, exaggerated shapes – and the old fairytale stories many of us grew up with. There’s a touch of Where the Wild Things Are in the spirit of it all, and when asked what song the collection might be, he immediately thinks of the band from Fraggle Rock – chaotic, colourful, a little wild. He can’t name the track, but the energy is clear.
The palette anchors the fantasy in something tactile and real. Java – that deep, earthy brown – grounds the collection across Calf Nappa, Ironed Calf, and glossy Eel-embossed leather. Porcelain white softens. Dune Suede steadies. Then the creatures emerge in Tamarillo vermillion, Frog green suede, and Dusk blue Lamb Nappa with silver hardware that catches the light just so.
Monster Mayhem is less about literal monsters and more about creative permission – the freedom to embrace colour, character, and contradiction. Structured but playful. Practical but expressive. Much like the people carrying it.
After watching Liam’s tote spill open, Zoe’s beauty edit unfold, and Sighle’s carefully organised essentials line up on the table, it became clear: the collection isn’t just about what the bags look like. It’s about what they hold – the work, the memories, the half-finished snacks, the ambitions waiting to be developed.
Shop the Monster Mayhem collection now HERE
Find Deadly Ponies on Instagram HERE
Let your inner creature carry the rest.
