While we were down in Munich picking up my new beloved Chloe Paddington ( 🙂 ), we could not help but venture down their high end boutique street to see what else was going on out there. Most of the stores did not impress me, such as Tod’s which barely had 3 women’s handbags or Gucci which had maybe 1/16 of what the Paris store had. But then again, Vlad and I have been a bit spoiled traveling the world and seeing the top fashion cities, so we needed to keep it all in perspective. When we saw the Bottega Veneta store, I was pleasantly surprised by the larger selection in the quite small store. The sales associate was very helpful and showed us all of the bags in great detail letting me try them on and see which I liked the best (not to mention the fact that she also spoke English so, I, for once, I did not need Vlad to be my translator). The bags are all made of the supplest leather, which was divinely soft at the touch. I love their bags, always have. But when I saw two of their newest bags (only a week old in the stores), that I had seen at their Fall/Winter 2005 runway show, I fell in love.
The Bottega Veneta Nero Ruched Jardin Clutch & Top Handle Bag are both gorgeous bags. The SA told us how the leather for these bags was made of one piece, so there is no stitching involved. The bottom of the bag just merged into the top that was divinely ruffled. The handles were a bit stiff, but that is to be expected with those bags, and over time they will soften up with use. There was another color available, which is also brand new, it was purple color called Vaticano. It was beautiful, but the kind of beautiful only if you could spend that much money on a not so versatile bag. So the black, to me, was practical and could be used for many occasions. Of course these bags do not come cheap. The Bottega Veneta Nero Ruched Jardin Clutch is $1,330 and the Bottega Veneta Nero Ruched Top Handle Bag is $1,770. If Vlad did not pull my arm (nearly out of socket), I very well may have bought the top handle bag. Good thing I didn’t since 5 minutes before I bought my new Paddy! Both of these bags are available via Bottega Veneta.
