SINGAPORE – It seems like a lifetime ago now that Polene was a secret on the internet.

The Paris-born luxury handbag label was once exclusively worn by French women drawn by national pride and a desire for novel, sculptural shapes. Though it opened its first store in the Bastille area of Paris in 2016, the year it launched, it was a rare occurrence to find anyone toting a Polene bag outside France.

If you spotted one in Singapore, you probably made a mental note that it was a nice bag and moved on.

Nowadays, it is a different story. The pandemic-era trend of “quiet luxury” fuelled interest in alternative labels and quality leather bags with “under $500” price tags – surfacing Polene, with its poetic visual campaigns, as a front runner.

TikTok spread the word like wildfire, its number of boutiques around the world more than doubled and Polene has become a household name holding its own alongside luxury houses with 10 times the history.

Singaporeans have fallen for it too. The brand’s best-selling Cyme totes – that boat-shaped, work-appropriate carry-all with sides that can be tucked in, changing the shape of the bag – fill the streets and MRT cabins here, inspiring dupes from local and international competitors alike.

Likely, more will join them, now that Polene has opened its first Singapore store in The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands on Aug 1.

Chief executive Antoine Mothay still finds it hard to believe that the family-owned brand has achieved such renown in just a decade.

In an exclusive e-mail interview with The Straits Times, he says: “We certainly hoped people would connect with Polene, but we could not have anticipated the international resonance it has today. We are very grateful for it.”