Marc Jacobs Handbags and Purses (Page 4)

It could be. And while it’s a cute bag, I have a tiny problem with it. The Marc Jacobs Parachute Cammie Crossbody Bag looks, to me, like it was made out of greenish golden tin foil. Someone just bunched that stuff up and stuck it under the zipper.

But there’s a general problem with this. First of all, it’s called the Parachute, so the designer must know that it looks like it was made out of flimsy parachute material (which pretty much looks like tin foil to my inexperienced eye – when it comes to adventurous air travel). The other problem is that I’m disappointed with the stock photo.

Marc Jacobs’s bag line is so big that it’s hard to ensure that you get a glimpse of all the different styles every season. His designs generally range from whimsical to tailored in a single collection, but as logic would dictate, the furry, sequined and tassel’d offerings sometimes overshadow those on the other end of the spectrum.

The Marc Jacobs Camille Satchel, in all of its chocolate-brown glory, is here to remind us that Jacobs hasn’t forgotten the women who actually buy his clothes – urbane, sophisticated and desirous of high-end, high-style objets for use in everyday life. And that’s exactly what this bag is: a beautiful piece for a woman whose bag needs to function in the real world.

I have a bit of a Marc Jacobs obsession right now. I love his ladylike bags for fall, especially with the added structured body, two toned coloring, and chain link shoulder strap. While the Gene Satchel is a bit more subdued, the Marc Jacobs Single Sequined Bag adds a burst of fun in neutral colors.

I already expect dissenting opinions, but let me explain to you all why I like this bag.

One thing that I’ve always appreciated about Marc Jacobs is the sheer breadth of aesthetic choices that can be contained within his eponymous line at any given time. His clothes and accessories range from the somewhat classic and conservative to the utterly wild, often in the span of a single season, and I suppose that this is the point where I should say “variety is the spice of life” and all that.

Fresh off the metallic parachute bags and foot-long fringe from last season, Jacobs has decided to make a 180-degree turn and go for something entirely different: retro, ladylike handbags. The Marc Jacobs Gene Satchel in particular is strongly reminiscent of the accessories from the Louis Vuitton fall line, which is also under Jacobs’s stewardship. Is that a good thing? In this case, absolutely.

We are big Marc Jacobs fan-girls here at PurseBlog. But it has been a little while since I ran into a Marc Jacobs bag that I truly found myself wanting. Don’t get me wrong, there are many beautiful designs, but I like to see a bag that I don’t just want but can justify ‘needing’. This bag comes the closest to ‘needing’ that I have felt in a while from Marc.

A black tote is a staple piece for a handbag wardrobe and the Marc Jacobs Amber Corner Zip Tote should be considered as a potential option.

Normally when Marc Jacobs makes bags for his eponymous line, they’re a little bit more streamlined and subdued than his efforts on behalf of Louis Vuitton, but the bags that we’ve seen from him recently have been anything but simple. We’ve seen fur, sequins, metallics and exotic leather, all combined in various ways for maximum handbag impact.

Some people may tire of the complication, but I love it when designers mix materials. That also means that I love the Marc Jacobs 2010 Rockstar Clutch – it has all of the necessary elements to be a great statement bag that everyone will notice. Plus, this bag is a little bit more subdued than some of the fur-and-sequins bags we’ve seen from Jacobs lately, so it’s a good way to buy in to the look without committing to something slightly ridiculous.

One of my main beliefs about handbag design is that really intricate, busy complicated ideas work best in very small doses. That may seem counterintuitive, since usually the scale of the idea should match the scale of the canvas, but this little theory of mine has proven itself true again and again. The Marc Jacobs Studded Python Single and the similarly-patterned version of the Marc Jacobs Stam are only the latest example.

When I first saw this look on the much-larger Stam, I was totally disappointed. I love the combination of red and black for a lot of reasons, not least of which because it’s the color scheme of my alma mater (Go Dawgs!), and I’d love to have a football-appropriate bag from one of my favorite designers. On the Stam, however, the combination of stamped python, multiple colors, quilting and studs was way too much.