Elegance 101 (bags)

Unfortunately, it has been at least 50 years that totally rediculous bags have been worn by women. Once they were called "novelty" bags, nowdays they are called the "it" bag. Yet all those years the recipe for an elegant bag is: good material, simple cut, moderation in proportions.

 Yes, a lady's handbag cannot be as big as a luggage for the weekend. If we can put some groceries in it, then it's too big. On the  other hand, a handbag for the night cannot be as small as a cigarette case either, it should hold our phone, our keys and our money. 

We start our bag wardrobe with bags a little bit bigger than an A4 sheet of paper, in basic colors (black, navy, brown) from leather, 2 middle size handles, no decorative details, without obvious stitching, at least 2 compartments inside and a zipper pocket. We add a black (probably) satin evening bag, with some sort of handle obvious or concealed (because we  should be able to carry somehow our bag when we climb a stair holding our dress too, or when we fasten the buttons of our outer wear). Then if we can afford something fancy, we proceed to a colorful one, a red, yellow or green, also from good quality leather. The colorful bag will make a huge difference in our wardrobe and will prove to be money very well spent.

The metal parts of our bags (if there are any) should match the jewelry we wear/the metal buttons on our clothes. The decoration of the bag should be taken into account when we decide which and how many pieces of jewelry we will add to our outfit (we cannot have ornaments all over our outfit). If the bag has short and long handles, they should be removable; only one type of handles should be obvious on the bag at any given time.

If we want to buy a bag that follows the current trends, we do so with a not very expensive model and use it frequently with our regular clothes within the limits  of the related trend. We keep in mind that halfway through the season we'll have to leave it aside (because everyone will be wearing it) and we won't be able to use it ever again, it will be dated. 

There are many beautiful bags out there, very artistic, with a lot of imagination on their design, especially vintage bags of 1960s, 1950s and 1940s. If we already own the basic models, we can buy as many artistic ones as we like and wear them as focal points of our outfits, but we should be careful: the line between artistic and ridicilous is often hard to define.  In any case we keep away from designs that repeat images from fairytales and children's books, e.g. a cloud, an animal, a rainbow,  a lipstick, a camera, a flower, a burger. Those bags look like a joke. We don't joke with our appearance.


(illustrations by Rebecca Moses)