Daily Mail journalists select and curate the products that feature on our site. If you make a purchase via links on this page we will earn commission - learn moreWhat if there was an accessory you could throw on with whatever you happened to be wearing and, shazam, instant high score on the styleometer? What if, better still, it worked like a miracle haircut plus a surgical eye-lift and made you look younger, in-the-know and just the right degree of relaxed stylish, in a youthful way?We’re talking about the big summer straw – or raffia, or sometimes leather – tote bag.Forget the concept of beach totes: when YSL is doing raffia, Prada’s bag of the summer is crochet and Miu Miu’s striped raffia tote is a bestseller, you know these bags are no longer just for holidays and their lifespan is as long as the rain holds off.Ignore the XL capacity too – that’s principally for impact. You’ll want to sling this bag over your shoulder even when you’ve got nothing more to carry than a phone. Take Victoria Beckham, stepping off the Beckham yacht on to the Beckham launch last week with a woven brown leather tote hooked over her shoulder. It could have been Bottega Veneta, possibly the Dragon Diffusion’s Nantucket style – still not much change from £500 – either way the purpose of that big woven tote was scoring maximum fashion points. She was wearing a long black slip dress, but that was not what got our attention. Did we clock the bag, the shade of brown, the black and white print silk scarf attached to the handle? Yes we did. The woven tote is there to steal the show – that’s its job.I notice them everywhere now, partly because they’re so big and confident and partly because they punch way above their weight, transforming everyday clothes into ‘Who’s That Woman’ outfits.They don’t have to be leather by any means, but if you’re interested in a similar brown tote to VB’s (and brown is the only colour to go for now) try NA-KD’s tote (£99.95, Asos.com) or John Lewis has one in more of a bucket shape in a good dark chocolate (£139, johnlewis.com). XL bag on Chanel Cruise runwayThe totes that have really taken off this summer are raffia, straw, cotton, crochet – anything with a woven texture. My view is we have the long winter to play with leather bags, and the bonus of natural fibres is their lightness and relative affordability.At one end of the spectrum there’s the classic straw French shopping basket – once again top of the fashion charts and the simplest and chicest of summer bags (you can take them anywhere, from the market to the beach, if not the office). If you haven’t got one you picked up on holiday years ago, I recently stumbled on a website, Basket Basket, that has the best selection, from a lined long handled straw basket (£39, basketbasket.co.uk) to diamond patterned sisal totes (£65). With these bags you don’t want anything too small and it always pays to have a leather shoulder strap as well as a top handle.If you prefer something cleaner and more structured, Zara’s large plain paper tote (£39.99, zara.com) fits the bill. Otherwise, Cos’s oversize handwoven market tote (£119, cos.com) is a sharpened-up version of the French basket, and I like M&S’s square, loose weave straw brown tote (£26, marksandspencer.com), which comes with a useful nude drawstring lining.On the raffia front, Massimo Dutti does a plain cream raffia tote (£170, massimodutti.com) which is more in line with YSL’s raffia bag. Another raffia style with designer pretensions (it’s a little bit like Jonathan Anderson’s XL Bulb bag) is Mango’s natural fibre shopper (£45.99, shop.mango.com) or there’s M&S’s smart raffia bag with a rounded handle and gold buckle detail in either plain or brown (£50). It’s a little bit hobo, a little bit tote, and is number two in their bestseller chart.Otherwise Hush has an oversize raffia tote in the sale (£40, hush-uk.com), chocolate brown of course, and big enough to double as an overnight bag.Moving on from the plain totes, I love Maison Bengal’s striped or checked jute bags for their elegant colour combinations. The XL jute bags come in wonderful subtle stripes (£74, maisonbengal.co.uk) but my current favourite is their black check cross body tote with striped wide strap (£48, maisonbengal.co.uk). Any one of them instantly makes your shirt dress, white skirt, jeans or trousers look chic.Quilted cotton totes in bright paisely prints are also big news this summer (the French brand Call It By My Name is the Prada of cotton totes) but you can get something similar from Accessorize (£35) or a plain cotton oversize striped tote (£33) at Marks and Spencer. Keep them XL and you can’t go wrong.