Summer’s must-have It-bag...and it’s only £28
WHO’D have predicted the new It-bag? Me, actually. And I’ll never forget the moment. It was September 2014 at the New York shows.
A stylish woman was posing in the middle of the road in the ultra-cool Meat Packing district, swinging one just so, as 30 photographers swarmed in front of her, jostling for the best shot. And Bam! One of the photographers was hit by a taxi.
The bag to cause the incident? A neat, semi- circle bamboo number that resembled a Japanese- style picnic hamper by Los Angeles-based label Cult Gaia. Not only was it a moment that encapsulated the exhibitionism of street style (fortunately the photographer limped away with little more than a bruised ego), it also signalled the rebirth of the basket bag.
Nearly three years later, the wicker warriors were out in force on the streets of Paris at the couture shows and the stores are piled high with them. Wicker, raffia, straw, rattan, jute, bamboo — they come in every iteration. Big and roomy, small and compact, soft, hard, fancy, plain.
Personally, I’ve always loved a traditional basket. They remind me of my Aunty Hilda and long hot summers, during harvest time in North Lincolnshire. A farmer’s wife, she’d carry hers on her daily mission to the village shops.
Shopping was part of her social life — a joke with the butcher, a gossip with the grocer. ‘By ’eck, Bec, take this,’ she’d say, passing me the basket, groaning with meat and veg. I didn’t mind — there was usually a bag of pear drops in it for me.
THeother brilliant woman who made a basket her trademark was Jane Birkin. When I interviewed her years ago about her namesake Hermes bag, the Birkin, she confessed that the world’s most expensive and exclusive of status symbols had, in fact, been inspired by her humble basket, which she would fill with books and baby stuff.
On a flight from Paris to London, said basket fell from the overhead locker, spilling its contents everywhere.
She happened to be sitting beside Hermes’ chief executive, Jean-Louis Dumas, who promised to make her a bag that was capacious, secure and comfortable enough to hold her belongings. et voila, the Birkin was born. Although, she said, she preferred her humble basket.
Baskets are no longer the cumbersome rigid structures of the Seventies. Today’s neat and swanky versions range from the aforementioned Cult Gaia ‘Ark’ baskets, recently restocked on Net-a-Porter, that cost £215, to sky’s-thelimit Mark Cross leather and rattan picnic hampers — an eye-watering £1,760.
But let’s be realistic. Do you really need a wicker tote from Prada (£1,100) or a woven straw Baguette from Fendi (£1,460)? What all these posh designer baskets tell us, is that they are no longer restricted to the beach.
The good news is that these new boxy, urban-appropriate styles can be picked up at a snip. Try the Juliet basket (£38, freepeople.com), or the red leather and rattan bag (£28, silkfred.com).
If you want more wear out of your basket, try a beachmeets- street look. Specialist brand Kayu ( mytheresa.com) offers everything from multicoloured fringed Pinata totes to straw numbers with pompoms. The bag on everyone’s hit list, though is New Look’s sequin palm basket — a snip at £27.99 ( newlook.com).
As for me, I hanker after a striped monogrammed basket by Rae Feather (£165, rae
feather.com) for my holiday in Corfu. It’s pricey and a tad ostentatious. Aunty H would never approve.