The Marc by Marc Jacobs Clearly Crossbody has had me intrigued ever since it appeared on the MbMJ Spring 2013 runway. This is far from the first high-end clear bag to hit stores, but many of the others were novelty items meant for a relatively small number of consumers. On the other hand, Nordstrom is carrying this bag in two colors, both online and in stores, and it’s at a price point that lends itself to a far larger consumer base than, say, a clear Chanel Classic Flap.

There’s an inherent luxury to a day clutch. That a woman is free to carry her bag in her hands implies all sorts of privilege, chiefly among them that the woman in question has other people at her disposal to worry about all the things with which the contents of an oversized tote might otherwise contend. It doesn’t guarantee that someone has a driver, personal assistant or nanny, of course, but I can understand why a certain breed of woman likes the implication that the look, when well-executed, provides.

No matter your location, when you think of spring, you probably think of color. And for those of you (like us) who happen to live in a part of the world in the midst of a gray, cold winter, I think it’s fair to say we look forward to Spring just a bit more than the average person.

As you can imagine, I was more than thrilled to select some of my favorite brightly colored bags for this coming Spring.

While at dinner with a few friends the other night, the subject of buying a new bag came up. My friend Jessica is in the market for something shiny and new, and her budget is $2,000. Naturally, I volunteered my recommendations…until I realized I didn’t have any. I can easily tell you which bag you should spend $3,000 on, or which bag you should impulse-buy for $500, but between those two extremes, things get a little murky.

An interesting design on a well-known bag is sure to get people talking, and that is what I know will happen with this Proenza Schouler PS1. The boys behind the brand released an array of artistic bold prints for Spring 2013, and my favorite rendition is the crowd print. We didn’t cover this bag in our previous roundup, but I’m glad we left it out so I could highlight it in more depth.

At this point, you guys know me, and you know that I’m an absolute sucker for a seasonal printed Proenza Schouler PS1. The bag I carry almost every day is a digital blanket-print version from Fall 2011, and every time Proenza makes a beautiful patterned textile and doesn’t do a PS1 version of it, I weep silently. For Spring 2013, I don’t see any PS1 textiles, but I do see something I like even better – printed leather.

My fellow Proenza Schouler-obsessed friends, rejoice. The brand is back on Rue La La today at 11 AM EST, which means savings on brand favorites like the PS11 (couldn’t you just die over the color pictured?) and various iterations of the PS1 in amazing colors. I should also mention that there are shoes (!).

Getting your hands on the brand’s insta-cool products at a markdown isn’t an opportunity that comes around all that often, and while I totally respect a luxury brand’s need to maintain their allure and manage the brand through extremely limited discounting…I just can’t help myself.

Just like we did with Proenza Schouler’s Pre-Fall 2013 presentation earlier this season, when we heard that Celine Fall 2013 (Celine calls pre-fall “fall” and fall “winter”) was debuting to a very limited press audience in New York City earlier this week, we took directly to Instagram and Twitter to see what kinds of pictures the most in-the-know editors and buyers would be tweeting from their appointments.

When Proenza Schouler hit big with its PS1, everyone waited to see what the duo would create next. The next big handbag design from the company was the PS11, and the minute I saw it, I was hooked. I find the PS11 to be an ideal mix of everything I like in a bag: sturdy, structured, and downtown cool.

Today, I am taking you on a journey through a gallery of images of my favorite Proenza Schouler PS11 bags, because why not?

Just like last week, we’re using the busy holiday travel time to take a look at an actress whose rapidly rising star is second only to her rapidly expanding bag collection. Jessica Chastain may not be a household name quite yet, but with the amount of praise she’s received for her roles in films like The Help and the just-released Zero Dark Thirty, it won’t be long.