Shoulder Bags

I’ve got to say at least one nice thing about this bag: Dolce & Gabbana, I like your enthusiasm.

No, actually, I love it. Because the kind of chutzpah it takes to put together seven (that I can count) types of fuzzy animal print onto one bag is the kind of chutzpah that it takes to occasionally create a stinkin’ awesome bag. But at this point, ladies and gentlemen, I have but one caveat: the Dolce & Gabbana Miss Martini Flap Bag is not that bag.

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I’ve never been a Tod’s fan, by and large. I’m sure that their bags are well-made, but they always seemed to be lacking in the design department, and for that kind of money, I want a bit of visual flair with my perfect construction.

And in the Tod’s Ribbed Leather Bag, I may have found it – this is easily my favorite of their bags in quite a long while, if not ever.

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Call me crazy, but I can kind of see what Chloe was going for here. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think they accomplished it, but I think I know where they were headed.

See, there’s these people called “hipsters.” They’re the ones that have been wearing skinny jeans since 2003, and Wayfarers as well. They shop for lamé leggings at American Apparel and live in Brooklyn (or Silverlake or East Atlanta or any other number of enclaves) and are responsible for a lot of music, most of it terrible but some of it reasonably good. They also wear some ridiculous accessories and handbags, most of them vintage, and most of them looking strangely like the Chloe Polka Dots Leather bag.

And since these hipster people can be thanked as either the starters or early adopters of a lot of what we see going on in fashion today, I can’t blame Chloe for giving them a nod. The thing about borrowing from hipsters, though, is that you have to be very careful about what you take and how you interpret it, and this particular bag is probably a bit too far over the line to be successful. It’s kind of cute as a novelty piece, but as a bag for a serious purse lover, I don’t think it measures up. Buy through Net-a-Porter for $1450.

I can’t even describe how excited I was to see that Luisa Via Roma had started carrying Balmain handbags, but that feeling of joy was quickly eclipsed by abject disappointment when I saw what those bags actually looked like. Why is a brand that makes such glam, inventive, rock star clothes and shoes making bags as boring as the Balmain Crystal Leopard Suede Bag?

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The ridiculous bags are always my favorite, be they good or bad in the long run. I’ve always thought it a greater sin to be boring than to be over-the-top, and sometimes great style is what happens when you get right on the line between just enough and too much.

The Marc Jacobs Wrath Studded Bag is somewhere circa that line, although I’m not sure what side it’s on. But I am sure that I love it, in spite (or maybe because) of its wealth of personality.

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Alber Elbaz, all is forgiven. I’ve groused and complained and wrinkled my nose at my fair share of Lanvin bags lately, but the Lanvin Amalia Python Shoulder Bag is good enough to absolve the brand of all their Chanel-aping sins.

The combination of simple shape and intricate material, plus a few Lanvin-signature extra, have me absolutely salivating for this bag.

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I’ve had a bit of a crush on Yves Saint Laurent since their pre-fall bags started rolling out, and it doesn’t look to be ending any time soon. I normally prefer things with a bit more of an edgy look, so this might be a sign of maturation on my part. Or maybe the bags are just that good – maybe they’re so well-designed that it’s impossible not to find some kind of attractiveness in them, no matter what your personal taste.

I’m not sure which one it is, but I’m absolutely sure that I love the Yves Saint Laurent Flap Shoulder Bag. There’s a beauty in its simplicity that I find irresistible.

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Yesterday when we were talking about the skunk fur monstrosity that Fendi has chosen to perpetrate on the fashion world at large, several commenters mentioned that the bag itself might be cute, if it weren’t for the formerly stinky dead animal hanging precipitously from it. I applaud those commenters for trying to look beyond the obvious awfulness.

And as luck would have it, Fendi saw fit to make a non-skunkified version for our significantly increased viewing pleasure, and as it turns out, the Fendi Peekaboo Roll Bag is not nearly as terrible as its hairy predecessor.

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If this bag is any indication, Lanvin is continuing their endless mission to morph their bag line into an a slighty hipster-y version of Chanel. I generally hate it when others complain that a bag looks like it’s Chanel just because it’s quilted or has a chain handle, but I can’t help but think that it’s an incredibly apt comparison in this case.

Not only is the Lanvin Happy Sac Partage Bag bag quilted, but it also has a chain handle, and its a flap bag with a front closure, just like a few other bags we’ve all seen in the past.

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I’d like to say, first and foremost, that I have no problem with eccentricity. Particularly in fashion, the desire to be willfully different is what finds new trends and charts new territory. It’s what keeps things going. Without eccentricity, we’d all be wearing sensible shoes and toting around our belongings in canvas grocery bags. And there’s nothing fun about either of those things.

But there’s also usually a problem with creating eccentricity for its own sake, which appears to be what was done with the Dolce & Gabbana Miss Charleston Chain Flap Bag. And I think we can all tell that it didn’t work out particularly well.

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