When I first spotted the Stella McCartney Fruit-Print Falabella Tote, my mind went to my childhood backyard and I was happy.

The Stella McCartney Falabella Tote first gained favor over a year ago when celebrities as varied as Rihanna and Kate Hudson began sporting the simple, biker-chic faux leather bag with every kind of outfit you could imagine. Many variations on the Falabella theme have followed, and now that we’re on (by my count) the third season rotation of these chain-trimmed purses, one has to wonder when McCartney will run out of ideas.

There’s perhaps nothing so tragic in fashion as looking at a bag that you know for a fact to be real and thinking that it looks fake. Sadly, that was exactly the reaction I had to the Valentino Sequin-Embellished Rosette Tote. Perhaps this motif has reached its logical end for the brand – it may be time for Valentino to start mining a different theme, considering how successful it was with birds last week.

It seems as though there are few animal-derived materials from which a designer has not attempted to make a handbag at some point. We’ve seen a zillion different versions of leather and fur, comprising almost any animal you can somehow raise on a farm, plus eel and stingray. Missoni makes a bag partially comprised of the skin from chicken feet. There is nothing new under the sun.

Have you ever seen a bag in person, talked yourself out of buying it and then obsessed over it for months on end afterward, at which point it has become sold out and you can no longer get it? That’s the tragic story of me and the Celine Boston Tote.

I thought I had successfully put the bag out of my mind, but after seeing Leighton Meester carry hers two weeks ago and Tommy Ton’s great photos of Celine bags on Jak & Jil Blog (from whence the above picture came), my obsession is back to full power and it shows no signs of abating.

Much has been made over fall’s leopard trend (in fact, much has been made by us), but it’s been difficult to crown a clear winner when trying to decide on the best leopard bag of the season. When we did a decidedly non-comprehensive roundup of some of the season’s spotted bags two months ago, many people liked the YSL option that cost a very unfortunate $3500.

When I recently wrote about Prada’s knitted leather clutches, two things were noticeably missing from the brand’s website: the same material rendered as a tote and my favorite color scheme from the Fall 2010 show. Luckily, both have surfaced in the form of the Prada Knit Nappa Tote.

I still love this bag just as much as I did on the runway, and the knit technique is so much fun to look at that I can’t wait to get my hands on one of these bags in person.

When we wrote about Proenza Schouler’s Pre-Fall 2010 accessories collection a month ago, a lot of people were excited about the brand’s upcoming paper bag tote. (A lot of people also hated it, but hey, that happens.) It was only a matter of time before it hit stores, and as of today, it finally has.

The tote, which is made out of treated leather instead of actual paper, is now available via Net-a-Porter for $615.

It’s always a bit disappointing to be able to look at a bag and know immediately how it could have been better. I can understand that after a certain point, design teams are unable to be objective about their products and less-than-perfect bags get made by every brand, ever season, but I still get a little frustrated when I see one.

If you were hoping that military chic was going to go the way of the dodo bird sometime soon, well, prepare to be disappointed. Prada’s fall collection just started trickling out to online retailers, and the most obvious element of the line so far is its use of camouflage. Whether this is good or bad probably depends on your feelings about military chic, but despite being a fan of the trend, I’m not entirely convinced.