Bottega Veneta mixes green paper and purple snakeskin and somehow, it works

Looking at the Bottega Veneta Snakeskin and Papier Elongated Knot Clutch makes it exceptionally clear to me why I’m a writer instead of a designer. Not only would I have never thought to combine purple-navy snakeskin and metallic green foil on a single clutch, but if someone had suggested it to me, I probably would have told them to think harder and come up with a better idea. As it turns out, the combination already looks pretty great.

For a bag this intricate, it’s hard for a photograph to tell the whole story. I saw it in person at Barneys last week, and I barely managed to put it back down on the shelf and walk away after an appropriate amount of time. This is the sort of design that makes you want to examine it more closely, and once you do, the bag is even more appealing. The foil and snake are woven together, and this is a rare case when the parts are just as interesting as their sum.

Oddly, I’ve seen descriptions of the bag that refer to the snakeskin as black, but it comes off as a dark purple or blue in person. I’m not sure if that’s a trick of the light because of the shiny foil or if the descriptions are just inaccurate, but whatever the reason, I’m glad that it doesn’t read as a true black. The unexpected color combination is what makes the clutch, and the difference in textures between the materials makes the difference all the more apparent. Buy through Bottega Veneta for $1650.