Satchel Bags (Page 3)

Balmain, French purveyor of clothes for rock stars and the models who spend their money, has not had great success in its meager attempts to create lust-worthy handbags. The clutches? They were bad. The messenger bags? Worse, if only because they were more expensive for the exact same schtick. But just in time for fashion to get sick of the glam military aesthetic, Balmain might have kinda-sorta gotten its handbag game together.

The Balmain Glitter Top Handle may not be a great handbag, but it’s a very Balmain one, which rights most of the wrongs with the company’s previous accessories designs. Not only were the bags not particularly cute, but they didn’t have any of the edge or joie de vivre of your average Balmain piece.

For Dolce & Gabbana, the flap satchel has become something of a brand signature. We’ve all seen the Miss Sicily in everything from allover sequins to knitted wool, and now the Dolce & Gabbana Miss Rosa Satchel is here to bring some lightness to your heavy winter wardrobe.

This bag is technically a Pre-Spring 2011 piece and therefore won’t arrive until around the first of the year, but as long as you live in the Northern Hemisphere, that’s still plenty of time to pair it with winter knits and and dark colors. Just don’t put it anywhere near your dark-wash skinny jeans unless you want the entire back side to turn blue. (Not that I know this from experience or anything… Of course not… Who would be silly enough to do such a thing?)

Dolce & Gabbana, the perennial providers of bustier tops and leopard print, is probably not the first brand that springs to mind when you think of wear-to-work accessories. When I think of wearing the brand’s clothes, the kinds of situations I picture usually involve skintight pencil skirts and very posh VIP clubs.

With the Dolce & Gabbana Cervo Doctor Bag, the signature sexiness is hidden on the inside in order to provide an exceptionally functional and ever-so-slightly conservative bag for a working woman. Save the leopard dress for nighttime, but this bag is just as comfortable in the daylight as the brand’s sexiest clothing is after dark.

Despite any fun that I might have had at Versace’s expense in the past, I really, really want the brand to get through its growing pains and come out the other side making beautiful accessories. Few labels have the kind of global name recognition that Versace enjoys, and it would make the accessories market as a whole much richer for Versace to find its voice and become a real player in the handbag game. If it keeps making bags like the Versace Hilary Satchel, there’s hope for the brand yet.

Instead of the over-the-top, mismatched styling that we’ve seen from the brand in the past, this bag’s design has been edited down to just the parts necessary to keep some of the Versace attitude. Most of that comes by way of the round hardware motif that dots the front of the bag, but it doesn’t distract at all from the beautifully textured and glazed purple leather underneath. Instead of having multiple colors, patterns and types of hardware compete with each other, this bag’s elements all work work together.

Recently I took issue with some of Chloe’s Fall 2010 runway bags, but the brand has somehow managed to redeem itself in my eyes in one fell swoop. Get on the bandwagon now, because the Chloe Cary Satchel has a ton of it-bag potential.

Because of the distinctive detailing around the bottom zippers, I could see this satchel being turned into lots of other bag shapes – hobos, totes, maybe even a mini crossbody. Since that appears to be a prerequisite for Chloé to continue making a bag in multiple season, I think we may be seeing the Cary bags for quite some time. I, for one, wouldn’t mind that at all.

Last week we saw Chloé’s moderately unsuccessful attempt at handbag minimalism, so to brighten up your Tuesday morning, I thought it would be nice to take a look at a bag from a brand that does minimalism far more successfully: Jil Sander.

Sander long ago ceased contact with her eponymous line, but her preference for minimal, modern design lives on in pieces like the Jil Sander Gray Manga Madame Bag. Competitors, take note: this is how you do chic minimalism.

Photo via Style.com. Price unavailable because my Googling skills have failed me. My guess would be around $2000.

I don’t mean to be glib, but it’s been a while since I can remember seeing an interesting Dolce & Gabbana bag that wasn’t a Miss Sicily Satchel. That particular model has seen a lot of success for the brand, but it seems as though the various Miss Sicily satchels have cannibalized most of Dolce’s bag line for the past couple of seasons. They Italian label has released other bags, of course, but I’d be hard-pressed to name any of them off the top of my head.

Finally, it looks like they’ve come up with another design worthy of our focused attention: the Dolce & Gabbana Miss Charlotte Satchel. I don’t remember seeing this one in the past, so if it is indeed new, then I’d like to offer it a hardy welcome and express my sincere hope that it sticks around for a while.