Valentino Handbags and Purses (Page 3)

With at least one notable exception, Valentino’s accessories aesthetic has looked just a wee bit gassed lately. In most ways, it seems as though the brand has mined the incredible intricacy of roses and ruffles to their logical ends, and it might be time to figure out what step should be taken next. And no, it’s not studs, in case the person at Valentino who conceived the brand’s Spring 2011 accessories might be reading this.

The Valentino Nymphe Garden Tote makes me think that at least one person at the brand might have the answer, though. In the face of notoriously tight-fisted construction and the apparent desire to pack as many details into one bag as humanly possible, it’s nice to see the designers go with an entirely different variation on the flower theme. Instead of tightly wound silk roses, this bag has a lightness and airiness to it that Valentino should consider incorporating into more of its accessories.

Usually, I’m a fan of a complicated clutch. The diminutive scale of an evening bag lends itself well to intricacy and detail because it merely provides a taste of a particular embellishment instead of the overwhelming dose that can come when lots of beading and embroidery are applied to a regular-sized tote or satchel.

Every design theory has its limits, though, and the Valentino Embroidered Pouchette pushes my feelings about complicated clutches to the very edge. This little bag has two colors of leather, two separate areas of beading, and one multicolor lace pattern juxtaposed with one monochromatic lace pattern. Oh, and studs. It also has studs, both on a bow and on the bag’s wrist strap. This list is getting kind of long, right?

If you are like me and have been a long time fan of Valentino but have not splurged on one of their bags, this may be the item for you. Sure, the Valentino Petale Chain Strap Leather Mini Bag is entirely small, but the design packs a punch.

I was never entirely sold on mini bags, but I have come to appreciate their functionality in recent months. If you do not always have to carry around every last item you typically stuff into your bag, having an easily accessible mini bag is the perfect option. Lately I only leave the house with a couple credit cards, cash, lip gloss, phone, and my keys.

At the time of this writing, our reader poll indicates that the majority of our readers are experiencing at least a bit of stud fatigue. It looks like no one told Valentino – almost all of the brand’s Spring 2011 handbags featured a stud of one sort or another.

As is Valentino’s predilection, the studs were mostly used in a small, decorative capacity as a part of larger, more ladylike designs. Perhaps surprisingly, the brand seemed to abandon entirely the intricate, abundant flowers and ruffles that have made it a star in the accessories world as of late. Surely this is only one part of the line that will eventually make its way to retail, but I hope that the brand has a few tricks up its sleeve that are more exciting than studded hand straps appear to serve no practical purpose off the runway.

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.

Valentino’s handbags are notorious for their use of literal flora – flowers and leaves of every variety have dotted the brand’s bags for several years running, to the near-exclusion of any other aesthetic ideas. The motif works for Valentino, and the brand has carved itself a significant, ladylike niche in a very competitive handbag market.

What Valentino has never used on a bag before, at least to my knowledge, is literal fauna, which is what we have with the Valentino Bird Clutch. A rather run-of-the-mill silk evening bag is topped by perching crystal birds; if this is the direction of Valentino’s evening accessories, then the brand might just end up giving Judith Leiber a run for its bird-bag money.

When I first saw the Valentino Primavera Water-Resistant Tote, I was really surprised. Not that the bag existed or was being marketed for rainy days – no, that made perfect sense – but that we don’t see a lot more of the exact same thing.

Chanel in particular has released a number of flap bags that come with their own rain coats in recent years, but other than a nylon tote here or there, most brands don’t take on the challenge of designing for bad weather. I live in a city that gets more inches of rain per year than Seattle, and I, for one, appreciate Valentino’s effort on behalf of those of us who experience real weather from time to time.