Chloé

Chloe Cyndi Tote

chloe cyndi tote
Chloe Cyndi Tote

It’s a grey, grey day in Georgia. And apparently, it’s going to be like this for the rest of the week, which might as well be forever. We need the rain, but I get in such a funk when it’s like this that all I accomplish is a lot of tv-watching and online shopping.

So, in honor of the grey skies outside, I bring you the Chloe Cyndi Tote in taupe (looks like grey to me – taupe is misleading!). I was drawn to this bag initially because of the color (grey is my favorite neutral), but what made me decide to write about it is that it gives you a lot of things to look at without being at all overdone or busy.

After you’ve been a designer bag enthusiast for a while, bags tend to run together. All too few designers do inventive, interesting things with their purses, but the Cyndi has some details that are truly editorial.

All the rivets are fashioned like slightly oversized flat screw heads, and the handles are held to the bag with big silver caribeeners (you know, those mountain-climbing thingies that stop people from falling off the side of a gorge?); I’d very much like to know if you can really unscrew them. All of this contrasts with the gold closure that keeps the handbag closed in the top center, and although I normally hate the combination of gold and silver hardware, I think the touch of gold adds a lot of visual interest.

And that’s just the hardware.

The leather has two textures – the outer part of the bag is croc stamped, and the inner part, which peaks out a few inches at the top, is smooth. The outer layer is open at the top, providing ample pocket room for all of your little odds and ends and giving the bag’s design some depth. The edges of the leather are raw, which adds another subtle point of interest to the bag’s slightly industrial look. It also comes in a more widely available black combination of outer patent and inner smooth leather ($2,030 via NAP), but I think the grey, which is available only via Net-a-porter, is a lot more interesting. $2,200 via Net A Porter.

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