Shoulder Bags (Page 4)

Swoon.

You hear that? I’m swooning. Pretty hard. I’m a bit desensitized to beautiful handbags in the same way that I imagine fashion photographers are desensitized to beautiful women – when you look at them all day from a business perspective, it’s can be kind of hard to recapture the feeling of excitement that they once gave you. Well, folks, the Pauric Sweeney Metallic Python Shoulder Bag has me giddy like a schoolgirl all over again. How could it not? The charms of this particular purse are so many and varied that I barely know where to start.

I wish with every fiber of my being that more online stores stocked vintage luxury bags. There’s something that I find so alluring about vintage – much of it, particularly those items made by luxury houses, has the feel of true exclusivity that even most high-end bags are missing these days.

Most of us know that almost everything we buy is made in factories, not by a talented artisan that cares about his work, and that makes luxury goods a bit less fun. With vintage, at least we can pretend that it was made by a guy named Francois in a picturesque workshop, diligently sewing bags while wearing a beret and smoking a hand-rolled cigarette. Or at least that’s what happens in my head. Perhaps Francois had a hand in the lovely Chanel Vintage Speedy Bag? I bet no one can prove to me that he didn’t – it’s vintage, after all.

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Despite my overwhelming love for black, I always seem to bypass black handbags. My theory is that since I wear so much black clothing, when it comes to accessories, I should experiment with color in at least my handbag and shoes. I’m a big fan of a black-on-black look, but if you’re pale like I am and wear too much black all at one time, well, people start to stare. The fact that I dye my hair black probably doesn’t help my cause.

Sometimes, though, there’s a black bag that’s just too fabulous for me to resist. This time, it’s the Christian Louboutin Tinzita Shoulder Bag that has me in its grasp. I’m sure that there are other colors out there for this particular bag, but there’s something about the super-soft black leather that’s got my attention.

Let’s get one thing cleared up before we begin: if the whole Marc Jacobs/Chanel “resemblance” issue over the past several years makes you have a rage blackout, this might not be the post (or the bag) for you. If the appropriation of quilted leather and chains strikes you as more of a winking homage than an out-and-out ripoff, then keep reading. Either way, if you get to the end of this post and are feeling a little stabby, don’t say I didn’t warn you.

For those of you that dig Jacobs’ Chanel-reminiscent handbags, the news that he’s now making the ever-popular “The Single” minibag in not-so-mini sizes is probably welcome news. One of those new bags is the Marc Jacobs The XL Quilting Shoulder Bag, and as the name would imply, it’s supersized for ease of day-to-day use. Oh, another thing to point out: it costs a couple of grand less than a Chanel Jumbo Classic Flap.

I’ve spent the past couple of days revisiting the Marc Jacobs Imogen Shoulder Bag several times, trying to decide what I think about it. Every time I open its product page to look at it again, my opinion lands somewhere in the chasm between “WTF” and “I see what they did there.”

I’ve decided that I don’t really think that this bag is attractive, which I suppose is a step toward figuring out what my overall opinion of it is. I do think it’s interesting to look at, however, and that may ultimately be more important than attractiveness when it comes to the demographic that Jacobs is trying to reach with this particular piece. Sometimes, having something that’s unlike what most people understand is the objective, even if it means stepping outside the normal bounds of aesthetic pleasure.

Holy blast from the past, Batman! Or would it be Batgirl, in the world of accessories? Pressing questions, these.

Anyway, if you’ve been a fan of designer bags for a few years now, you’ve likely seen the Jimmy Choo Tulita Shoulder Bag before. For those of you who joined us recently, there was a point in the not-so-distant past at which Jimmy Choo was merely a shoe brand. In the mid-2000s, they branched out in to bags and never looked back.

Back in those heady days of their first non-shoe products, however, the Tulita was one of Jimmy Choo’s first bag designs (or possibly the very first – it’s difficult to pin these things down) – but is there still a market for it?