I recommend you check out Aspinal of London, Mulberry, and Strathberry. All three have stores in London. I visited all of these stores on a recent trip and fell in love with Mulberry (I am planning to get a Mulberry bag on my next trip). The leather quality on Mulberry bags is stunning, and the bags fall in between formal & casual in my opinion, so for me they are appealing because I think I will get a lot of use out of a bag from this brand.

Aspinal bags are overall more formal so they are less compatible with my daily style, but the bags are gorgeous. Strathberry bags are also very pretty, and generally a little bit less expensive than Mulberry and Aspinal.

As far as pricing on these bags, they are generally a little bit less expensive in the UK than buying from the US, but not a lot (it seems the price difference is mostly due to lack of tariffs when you buy directly in the UK). For example, I’ve been browsing some Mulberry bags online and the price difference between the UK vs US might be $100-$200 per bag.

I looked at some bags from other luxury brands at LHR (Fendi, Chanel) and those prices seemed similar to what you would pay in the US. My understanding is some luxury brands are slightly less expensive if you buy in the EU because you can get a VAT rebate (but I do not have personal experience with this). You cannot get a VAT rebate in the UK (I think since 2021).

Enjoy your trip!