Daisy Churchward
The Fashion Writer
Suzanne Dixon
The Perfect Handbag
Finding the perfect handbag has become a bit of a chore. Yes, this search has been done
hundreds of times before, but I don’t expect to find a handbag. In fact, I have well and truly
given up. The stress of do we go timeless? On trend? Miniature? Oversize? And if I see the term
‘IT bag’ again, I feel as if I will cry. I do not want a bag to only last a season. I want it to last
years.
With Christmas approaching slowly but surely, I have been prowling for my bag. But I have a
constant dilemma of which bag will last the longest, keep me looking in vogue and ahead in the
class stakes.
Going for a classic is a good start, you know
it’s not going to immediately go out of
fashion and you know you won’t experience
the patronising looks from the women who
‘have it all’ but there is a danger however,
of turning up in the same bag as everybody
when popping out for a social coffee or
dinner. This is where it gets tremendously
tricky. Classic or quirky? Herme’s Birkin or
the Christian Louboutin Anastacia bag. One
of which would be extremely impractical
for most of the year in dreary England.
The Mulberry Bayswater is one bag that I
see on a everyday basis. A classic of course,
but is it starting to become, dare I say, common? Similarly bags such as the Chanel 2.55 that
just exudes glamour have been copied and imitated to a point where it has started to look
tacky.
Certain handbags represent your inner-self, what you stand for, what you appreciate in life,
and your level of classiness. You all know the look you give people when they walk down the
road with a Chloe handbag compared to the look when someone has the latest Gucci copy from
Primark. Just yesterday I saw a young, very orange tanned mum, get extremely over excited by
a hot-pink silky clutch with diamantés stuck all over it in the queue in Primark. I don’t try to be
a snob, but my gosh. There are just some pieces of fashion that should never exist and this was
definitely one of them.
So, choosing the right bag is essential, because it represents you. No matter how materialistic,
superficial, or shallow it sounds. You know it is true.
The high-street is a place that is often disregarded for a serious shopper. Yes, celebrities shop
here, even our newest Princess has started shopping there to prove she’s ‘down to earth. But I
can’t imagine celebrities queuing at the door of Topshop for their opening of a new season for a
new handbag anytime soon. The status symbol that a handbag holds is too important for
celebrities to sink to most of our levels. Photo after photo of Miss Beckham gracing magazines,
Daisy Churchward
The Fashion Writer
Suzanne Dixon
clutching her Hermes in every colour under the sun. It’s clear that designer bags won’t be going
out of style anytime soon.
Clearly we can’t all afford £3000 for a new handbag, so I always end up in Zara, Topshop or
Urban Outfitters. It is a bit of a risk to buy from these shops, Zara I could potentially end up
looking like a middle-aged woman, Topshop I could end up looking like a Christmas decoration,
and Urban Outfitters I could end up looking like a the new era of teens; ‘hipsters’. So this is
where the research kicks in. Hours and hours spent trawling through website pages, busy trips
picking up bags, touching them and checking the prices. Some of us might even enjoy this, but I
end up an emotional wreck.
Do you not think I am being over dramatic? Possibly, yes. But it is in my genes. Grandma has a
bag for every occasion, every holiday when a new outfit is bought a new handbag has to be
purchased to match the outfit. Every wedding, birthday, even every funeral. Even though I only
want one bag for everything, there is no doubt my Grandma has influenced my shopping
patterns. It seemed to skip a generation in my family. Mother was never bothered about
clothes, going from a punk to a hippy and then just bouncing back into a motherly style. A
Radley bag is perhaps the only bag she owns and I doubt she even knows what ‘Radley’ is.
My collection only consists of about
thirteen handbags. Some classics such as
a satchel bag, canvas totes for everyday
use but also a miniature Mulberry
Bayswater belt bag. And when I say
miniature, it truly is. My purse is bigger
than this bag. It was part of my eighteenth
birthday present and of course I am
grateful, but it’s just so damn unpractical.
If my purse doesn’t fit in it there really is
no hope.
Each new season we are bombarded with
magazines and blog entries shoving brand
new styles of bags at us. I beg for bags not
to change each season and that designers just settle for one bag for three years and then
change.
Even though I know that it is a load of rubbish ‘keeping in fashion’ is, I still feel the need to be
kept in the loop and kept up to date. I’ve always loved that side of being a woman though. I
know lots of people that would ‘prefer to be a man’ just because of the clothing predicaments. I
don’t think I’d ever want to give it up. No matter the amount of whining and whinging I’ve
done, I like to shop.
So still, my search continues. I’m not going to go out of my way to try and search for a perfect
bag. Browsing shops for clothes and other pleasantries, without feeling the need to find ‘that
one item’. I am going to take a backseat for a while. Hoping that one day and out of the blue
shopping trip will help land the perfect bag in my lap. If ever.