Nancy Gonzalez Handbags and Purses (Page 2)

As if traveling wasn’t fun enough to begin with, fashion has gone and found a way to make it even better: Nancy Gonzalez luggage.

Launching yesterday exclusively at Bergdorf Goodman in New York City, Gonzalez now makes a line of suitcases and small travel accessories in her company’s signature crocodile skins. Manufactured to be excellent lightweight luggage in addition to being utterly luxurious, the collection includes items all the way from passport holders to iPad cases to rolling suitcases, priced between $400 and $8000. We have a preview of some of the collection’s pieces, after the jump.

At this point, it might be entirely useless to try to review Nancy Gonzalez’s Spring 2011 handbags, or any set of handbags from the Colombian accessories maven. She does one thing (exotics), and does it extremely well. You’ll find no trend-chasing or gimmicks within this line, just piece after piece of luxurious exotic leather formed into handbags of every size, shape and color imaginable.

Spring 2011′s pieces run the gamut from staid, perfect neutrals to bold brights to glam metallics and everything in between, including latice work and weaving on some of the collection’s more casual pieces. All of this stuff is vintage Nancy Gonzalez, and although her collections may not change a great deal from season to season, there’s something almost comforting about her consistency. And if you’ve never inspected one of Gonzalez’s bags in person, I highly recommend it; they’re among the best-planned designs on the market, which is just another reason to love what she does.

It’s so rare that Nancy Gonzalez makes a misstep. Her handbags may not be revolutionary, but it’s nearly impossible to go wrong with exotic materials, beautiful colors and simple shapes. It appears as though she has handbag design nearly down to a science.

The Nancy Gonzalez Hand-Held Croc Clutch is merely the most recent in a long line of sartorial successes from the brand, and as always, I’m drooling over it. Bicolor bag design is difficult to do well (as we’re also discussing over at PurseBlog Savvy currently), but I have absolutely no complaints about this clutch. Well, other than the fact that it isn’t in my closet, of course.

Not long after the annual summer release of a new iPhone comes an inevitable parade of ways to personalize and protect your new gadget. Those options range from rubber cases that can be had for $19.99 at your local Best Buy to Louis Vuitton monogram sheaths that cost more than the phone itself (with a two-year contract, of course), and the prospect of choosing one can be quite the task indeed for style-conscious gadget-lovers.

Since it seems as though the iPhone 4 is making a case more of a necessity than ever, now is a good a time as any to talk about the odd submarket that has opened up for designer tech accessories. Would you spend a couple hundred bucks on a case for your phone, or are such things absolutely frivolous in your mind?

When you get down to the details, it’s no surprise that Nancy Gonzalez‘s bags are so successful. First, the brand keeps costs down by sourcing most materials from its own farms, which means that Gonzalez’s crocodile and python bags are among the most well-priced exotics in the mass-market luxury business. Second, Gonzalez & Co. let the rare materials take center stage, as you can see so well in the Nancy Gonzalez Python Satchel.

Multicolored python can become cheap-looking very quickly if the designer doesn’t take care to maintain the integrity of the skin’s natural pattern, but the blue and cream combination that we see here only enhances the python’s inherent beauty.

Have you noticed the lack of posts on PurseBlog in the past week or two? I am almost embarrassed to say it is because Vlad and I have become so enthralled following World Cup Soccer that our work productivity has been compromised. As much as I love sports, soccer has never been my favorite sport. But there is something about a World Event that sucks me in. I even jumped off the couch this morning during the USA win over Algeria. It is that bad.

I saw this the other day and I could not pass up sharing with you all. As I said, my mind is on soccer right now, but I was waiting to see which designer would create a soccer themed item. While not a handbag, Santiago Gonzalez of Nancy Gonzalez created a Crocodile Skin Soccer Ball designed for Harrods. The item is no longer is stock on the website (sold out?!).

I can’t think of a bag that’s more versatile than a big black clutch. Add an exotic skin to the mix for a healthy dose of luxury and you’ve got a bag that can be worn day or night and year-round, no matter your age. Sometimes it’s hard to imagine how you’d work even the most basic bag into your wardrobe, however, particularly if you’re not prone toward considering a clutch (even an oversized one) to be a legitimate option for daytime use. With a little help from the Nancy Gonzalez Large Crocodile Clutch, I’m here to give you some food for thought. Or, maybe, I’m just here to make up pretty outfits. I’m comfortable with either of those options.