Is it terribly vulgar to flaunt designer labels?

As Anya Hindmarch says status bags shout: ‘Look at me, I’m so wealthy’...

OH, ANYA Hindmarch, bag lady to the Duchess of Cambridge. How confident you must be to say you dislike designer handbags bought for status, which, you say, shout: ‘Look at me, I’m wearing this brand.’

How never in need of shoring up for a job interview or first date. or compelled to self-gift to celebrate how far you’ve come.

It’s ironic, really, given your eponymous brand, to slate bags that have an obvious pedigree and price tag. Your comments could easily have come from a man: the bloke who drives a BMW, but asks the woman in his life why on earth she shops in SpaceNK and not just Boots.

My first obviously designer purchase was a ‘snowflake’ knit from Joseph Tricot on South Molton Street in London, bought in the late 1970s. owning it meant the cripplingly shy teenager with acne from Essex might have a shot at belonging.

I quickly graduated to Mulberry. I could only afford a wallet, but as I studied the little logo depicting a tree heavy with fruit and possibilities, I knew I’d arrived. Designer accessories were my armour, a passport to a better life. I’m caressing the triangular Prada logo of my first designer bag now: a nylon rucksack. I handed over my card for it in Joseph, thinking: ‘Bet you regret turning me down as a Saturday girl now.’ The rucksack is still pristine 35 years on, by the way.

My favourite look-at-me branding is the double G of Gucci, the letters caught in an embrace. remember its 2003 advert with a model’s pubic hair shaved into a ‘G’? The message was clear: if you wear Gucci, someone will love you.

Designer labels are shorthand, too. I remember going into the Celebrity Big Brother house and meeting my fellow housemates: a glamour model, a rapper and a bankrupt pop star. Each wore on their sleeve an embroidered badge depicting a cockerel behind the letter ‘M’: the logo of Moncler, the originally French brand that dressed olympians. The logo proclaimed: I’ve worked hard. I can ski. I deserve to be here.

Those who love designer accessories aren’t show-offs, despite what Ms Hindmarch says. Those culprits are the women who turn up at a funeral in trainers, wielding a carrier bag. She might look askance at the lascivious red tongue of my Louboutins, but her lack of labels is shouting loud and clear: ‘I don’t make an effort for anyone. I only think of myself.’

There has been just one time I’ve been ashamed of my love of designer branding. In LA, waiting next to me at the luggage carousel was Natalie Portman. She scooped up a battered hessian rucksack. I let my vintage Vuitton tote go for one more spin, just so she didn’t realise it was mine.

‘ As I studied the Mulberry logo, I knew I had arrived’